•Jx 


BOOKS   BY  HENRY  JAMES 

PUBLISHED  BY  CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 


THE  IVORY  TOWER. 

THE  SENSE  OF  THE  PAST. 

THE  OUTCRY. 

THE  FINER  GRAIN. 

THE  SACRED  FOUNT. 

THE  WINGS  OF  THE  DOVE.     2  vols. 

THE  BETTER  SORT. 

THE  GOLDEN  BOWL.     2  vols. 


NOTES  ON  NOVELISTS  WITH  SOME 

OTHER  NOTES. 
A  SMALL  BOV  AND  OTHERS. 
NOTES  OF  A  SON  AND  BROTHER. 
THE  MIDDLE  YEARS. 


NOVELS  AND  TALES.     NEW  YORK  EDITION. 
26  vols. 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 


THE   IVORY  TOWER 


BY 

HENRY   JAMES 


NEW  YORK 

CHARLES    SCRIBNER'S    SONS 
1917 


COPYRIGHT,  1917,  BY 
CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 


Published  October,  1917 


PREFACE 

THE  IVORY  TOWER,  one  of  the  two  novels  which  Henry 
James  left  unfinished  at  his  death,  was  designed  to  con 
sist  of  ten  books.  Three  only  of  these  were  written, 
with  one  chapter  of  the  fourth,  and  except  for  the  cor 
rection  of  a  few  obvious  slips  the  fragment  is  here  printed 
in  full  and  without  alteration.  It  was  composed  during 
the  summer  of  1914.  The  novel  seems  to  have  grown  out 
of  another  which  had  been  planned  by  Henry  James  in 
the  winter  of  1909-10.  Of  this  the  opening  scenes  had 
been  sketched  and  a  few  pages  written  when  it  was  in 
terrupted  by  illness.  On  taking  it  up  again,  four  years 
later,  Henry  James  almost  entirely  recast  his  original 
scheme,  retaining  certain  of  the  characters  (notably  the 
Bradham  couple,)  but  otherwise  giving  an  altogether 
fresh  setting  to  the  central  motive.  The  new  novel  had 
reached  the  point  where  it  breaks  off  by  the  beginning  of 
August  1914.  With  the  outbreak  of  war  Henry  James 
found  he  could  no  longer  work  upon  a  fiction  supposed 
to  represent  contemporary  or  recent  life.  The  completed 
chapters — which  he  had  dictated  to  his  secretary,  in  ac 
cordance  with  his  regular  habit  for  many  years  past — 
were  revised  and  laid  aside,  not  again  to  be  resumed. 

The  pages  of  preliminary  notes,  also  here  printed  in 
full,  were  not  of  course  intended  for  publication.  It 
was  Henry  James's  constant  practice,  before  beginning 
a  novel,  to  test  and  explore,  in  a  written  or  dictated 
sketch  of  this  kind,  the  possibilities  of  the  idea  which  he 
had  in  mind.  Such  a  sketch  was  in  no  way  a  first  draft 
of  the  novel.  He  used  it  simply  as  a  means  of  close 

V 


3C7953 


PREFACE 

approach  to  his  subject,  in  order  that  he  might  com 
pletely  possess  himself  of  it  in  all  its  bearings.  The 
arrangement  of  chapters  and  scenes  would  so  be  gradu 
ally  evolved,  but  the  details  were  generally  left  to  be  de 
termined  in  the  actual  writing  of  the  book.  It  will  be 
noticed,  for  example,  that  in  the  provisional  scheme  of 
The  Ivory  Tower  no  mention  is  made  of  the  symbolic 
object  itself  or  of  the  letter  which  is  deposited  in  it.  The 
notes,  having  served  their  purpose,  would  not  be  referred 
to  again,  and  were  invariably  destroyed  when  the  book 
was  finished. 

In  the  story  of  The  Death  of  the  Lion  Henry  James 
has  exactly  described  the  manner  of  these  notes,  in  speak 
ing  of  the  t( written  scheme  of  another  book"  which  is 
shewn  to  the  narrator  by  Neil  Paraday  :  "Loose  liberal 
confident,  it  might  have  passed  for  a  great  gossiping 
eloquent  letter — the  overflow  into  talk  of  an  artist's  am 
orous  plan"  If  justification  were  needed  for  the  de 
cision  to  publish  this  "overflow"  it  might  be  found  in 
Paraday  s  last  injunction  to  his  friend:  "Print  it  as  it 
stands — beautifully" 

PERCY  LUBBOCK. 


VI 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

THE  IVORY  TOWER i 

NOTES  FOR  THE  IVORY  TOWER 269 


BOOK  FIRST 

I 

\  IT  was  but  a  question  of  leaving  their  own  con 
tracted  "grounds,"  of  crossing  the  Avenue  and 
proceeding  then  to  Mr.  Betterman's  gate,  which 
even  with  the  deliberate  step  of  a  truly  massive 
young  .jjerson  she  could  reach  in  three  or  four 
minutes. ^  So,  making  no  other  preparation  than 
to  open  a  vast  pale-green  parasol,  a  portable  pa 
vilion  from  which  there  fluttered  fringes,  frills  and 
ribbons  that  made  it  resemble  the  roof  of  some 
Burmese  palanquin  or  perhaps  even  pagoda,  she 
took  her  way  while  these  accessories  fluttered  in 
the  August  air,  the  morning  freshness,  and  the 
soft  sea-light./  Her  other  draperies,  white  and 
voluminous,  yielded  to  the  mild  breeze  in  the 
manner  of  those  of  a  ship  held  back  from  speed 
yet  with  its  canvas  expanded;  the}^  conformed 
to  their  usual  law  of  suggestion  that  the  large 
loose  ponderous  girl,  mistress  as  she  might  have 
been  of  the  most  expensive  modern  aids  to  the 
constitution  of  a  "figure,"  lived,  as  they  said 
about  her,  in  wrappers  and  tea-gowns;  so  that, 
save  for  her  enjoying  obviously  the  rudest  health, 

I 


:  I  H£  .IVORY  TOWER 

she  might  have  been  a  convalescent  creeping  forth 
from  the  consciousness  of  stale  bedclothes.'  She 
turned  in  at  the  short  drive,  making  the  firm 
neat  gravel  creak  under  her  tread,  and  at  the  end 
of  fifty  yards  paused  before  the  florid  villa,  a 
structure  smothered  in  senseless  architectural 
ornament,  as  if  to  put  her  question  to  its  big  fair 
foolish  face.  How  Mr.  Betterman  might  be  this 
morning,  and  what  sort  of  a  night  he  might  have 
had,  was  what  she  wanted  to  learn — an  anxi 
ety  very  real  with  her  and  which,  should  she  be 
challenged,  would  nominally  and  decently  have 
brought  her;  but  her  finer  interest  was  in  the 
possibility  that  Graham  Fielder  might  have  come. 
The  clean  blank  windows,  however,  merely 
gave  her  the  impression  of  so  many  showy  pic 
ture-frames  awaiting  their  subjects;  even  those 
of  them  open  to  the  charming  Newport  day 
seemed  to  tell  her  at  the  most  that  nothing  had 
happened  since  the  evening  before  and  that  the 
situation  was  still  untouched  by  the  change  she 
dreamt  of.  A  person  essentially  unobservant  of 
forms,  which  her  amplitude  somehow  never  found 
of  the  right  measure,  so  that  she  felt  the  misfit 
in  many  cases  ridiculous,  she  now  passed  round 
the  house  instead  of  applying  at  the  rather  grandly 
gaping  portal — which  might  in  all  conscience 
have  accommodated  her — and,  crossing  a  stretch 
of  lawn  to  the  quarter  of  the  place  turned  to  the 
sea,  rested  here  again  some  minutes.  She  sought 

2 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

indeed  after  a  moment  the  support  of  an  elab 
orately  rustic  bench  that  ministered  to  ease  and 
contemplation,  whence  she  would  rake  much  of 
the  rest  of  the  small  sloping  domain;  the  fair 
prospect,  the  great  sea  spaces,  the  line  of  low  re 
ceding  coast  that  bristled,  either  way  she  looked, 
with  still  more  costly  "places,"  and  in  particular 
the  proprietor's  wide  and  bedimmed  verandah, 
this  at  present  commonly  occupied  by  her  "prowl 
ing"  father,  as  she  now  always  thought  of  him, 
though  if  charged  she  would  doubtless  have  ad 
mitted  with  the  candour  she  was  never  able  to 
fail  of  that  she  herself  prowled  during  these  days 
of  tension  quite  as  much  as  he. 

He  would  already  have  come  over,  she  was  well 
aware — come  over  on  grounds  of  his  own,  which 
were  quite  different  from  hers;  yet  she  was  scarce 
the  less  struck,  off  at  her  point  of  vantage,  with 
the  way  he  now  sat  unconscious  of  her,  at  the 
outer  edge  and  where  the  light  pointed  his  pres 
ence,  in  a  low  basket-chair  which  covered  him  in 
save  for  little  more  than  his  small  sharp  shrunken 
profile,  detached  against  the  bright  further  dis 
tance,  and  his  small  protrusive  foot,  crossed  over 
a  knee  and  agitated  by  incessant  nervous  motion 
whenever  he  was  thus  locked  in  thought.  Sel 
dom  had  he  more  produced  for  her  the  appear 
ance  from  which  she  had  during  the  last  three 
years  never  known  him  to  vary  and  which  would 
have  told  his  story,  all  his  story,  every  inch  of  it 

3 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

and  with  the  last  intensity,  she  felt,  to  a  specta 
tor  capable  of  being  struck  with  him  as  one  might 
after  all  happen  to  be  struck.  What  she  her 
self  recognised  at  any  rate,  and  really  at  this 
particular  moment  as  she  had  never  done,  was 
how  his  having  retired  from  active  business,  as 
they  said,  given  up  everything  and  entered  upon 
the  first  leisure  of  his  life,  had  in  the  oddest  way 
the  effect  but  of  emphasising  his  absorption, 
denying  his  detachment  and  presenting  him  as 
steeped  up  to  the  chin.  Most  of  all  on  such  oc 
casions  did  what  his  life  had  meant  come  home 
to  her,  and  then  most,  frankly,  did  that  meaning 
seem  small;  it  was  exactly  as  the  contracted  size 
of  his  little  huddled  figure  in  the  basket-chair. 

He  was  a  person  without  an  alternative,  and  if 
any  had  ever  been  open  to  him,  at  an  odd  hour  or 
two,  somewhere  in  his  inner  dimness,  he  had  long 
since  closed  the  gate  against  it  and  now  revolved 
in  the  hard-rimmed  circle  from  which  he  had  not 
a  single  issue.  You  couldn't  retire  without  some 
thing  or  somewhere  to  retire  to,  you  must  have 
planted  a  single  tree  at  least  for  shade  or  be  able 
to  turn  a  key  in  some  yielding  door;  but  to  say 
that  her  extraordinary  parent  was  surrounded  by 
the  desert  was  almost  to  flatter  the  void  into 
which  he  invited  one  to  step.  He  conformed  in 
short  to  his  necessity  of  absolute  interest — inter 
est,  that  is,  in  his  own  private  facts,  which  were 
facts  of  numerical  calculation  altogether:  how 

4 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

could  it  not  be  so  when  he  had  dispossessed  him 
self,  if  there  had  even  been  the  slightest  selection 
in  the  matter,  of  every  faculty  except  the  calcu 
lating?  If  he  hadn't  thought  in  figures  how 
could  he  possibly  have  thought  at  all — and  oh 
the  intensity  with  which  he  was  thinking  at  that 
hour!  It  was  as  if  she  literally  watched  him  just 
then  and  there  dry  up  in  yet  another  degree  to 
everything  but  his  genius.  His  genius  might  at 
the  same  time  have  gathered  in  to  a  point  of 
about  the  size  of  the  end  of  a  pin.  Such  at  least 
was  the  image  of  these  things,  or  a  part  of  it, 
determined  for  her  under  the  impression  of  the 
moment. 

He  had  come  over  with  the  same  promptitude 
every  morning  of  the  last  fortnight  and  had 
stayed  on  nearly  till  luncheon,  sitting  about  in 
different  places  as  if  they  were  equally  his  own, 
smoking,  always  smoking,  the  big  portentously 
"special"  cigars  that  were  now  the  worst  thing 
for  him  and  lost  in  the  thoughts  she  had  in  gen 
eral  long  since  ceased  to  wonder  about,  taking 
them  now  for  granted  with  an  indifference  from 
which  the  apprehension  we  have  noted  was  but 
the  briefest  of  lapses.  He  had  over  and  above 
that  particular  matter  of  her  passing  perception, 
he  had  as  they  all  had,  goodness  knew,  and  as 
she  herself  must  have  done  not  least,  the  air  of 
waiting  for  something  he  didn't  speak  of  and  in 
fact  couldn't  gracefully  mention;  with  which 

5 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

moreover  the  adopted  practice,  and  the  irre 
pressible  need  of  it,  that  she  had  been  having 
under  her  eye,  brought  out  for  her  afresh,  little 
as  she  invited  or  desired  any  renewal  of  their 
salience,  the  several  most  pointed  parental  signs 
— harmless  oddities  as  she  tried  to  content  her 
self  with  calling  them,  but  sharp  little  symbols 
of  stubborn  little  facts  as  she  would  have  felt 
them  hadn't  she  forbidden  herself  to  feel.  She 
had  forbidden  herself  to  feel,  but  was  none  the 
less  as  undefended  against  one  of  the  ugly  truths 
that  hovered  there  before  her  in  the  charming 
silver  light  as  against  another.  That  the  terri 
ble  little  man  she  watched  at  his  meditations 
wanted  nothing  in  the  world  so  much  in  these 
hours  as  to  know  what  was  "going  to  be  left" 
by  the  old  associate  of  his  operations  and  sharer 
of  his  spoils — this,  as  Mr.  Gaw's  sole  interest  in 
the  protracted  crisis,  matched  quite  her  certainty 
of  his  sense  that,  however  their  doomed  friend 
should  pan  out,  two-thirds  of  the  show  would 
represent  the  unholy  profits  of  the  great  wrong 
he  himself  had  originally  suffered. 

This  she  knew  was  what  it  meant — that  her 
father  should  perch  there  like  a  ruffled  hawk, 
motionless  but  for  his  single  tremor,  with  his 
beak,  which  had  pecked  so  many  hearts  out,  visi 
bly  sharper  than  ever,  yet  only  his  talons  nervous; 
not  that  he  at  last  cared  a  straw,  really,  but  that 
he  was  incapable  of  thought  save  in  sublimities  of 

6 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

arithmetic,  and  that  the  question  of  what  old 
Frank  would  have  done  with  the  fruits  of  his 
swindle,  on  the  occasion  of  the  rupture  that  had 
kept  them  apart  in  hate  and  vituperation  for  so 
many  years,  was  one  of  the  things  that  could 
hold  him  brooding,  day  by  day  and  week  by 
week,  after  the  fashion  of  a  philosopher  tangled 
in  some  maze  of  metaphysics.  As  the  end,  for- 
the  other  participant  in  that  history,  appeared' 
to  draw  near,  she  had  with  the  firmest,  wisest) 
hand  she  could  lay  on  it  patched  up  the  horrid! 
difference;  had  artfully  induced  her  father  to 
take  a  house  at  Newport  for  the  summer,  and 
then,  pleading,  insisting,  that  they  should  in 
common  decency,  or,  otherwise  expressed,  in  view 
of  the  sick  man's  sore  stricken  state,  meet  again, 
had  won  the  latter  round,  unable  as  he  was  even 
then  to  do  more  than  shuffle  downstairs  and  take 
an  occasional  drive,  to  some  belief  in  the  sincerity 
of  her  intervention.  She  had  got  at  him — under 
stress  of  an  idea  with  which  her  ostensible  motive 
had  nothing  to  do;  she  had  obtained  entrance, 
demanding  as  all  from  herself  that  he  should  see 
her,  and  had  little  by  little,  to  the  further  illumi 
nation  of  her  plan,  felt  that  she  made  him  wonder 
at  her  perhaps  more  than  he  had  ever  wondered 
at  anything;  so  that  after  this  everything  else 
was  a  part  of  that  impression. 

Strange  to  say,  she  had  presently  found  herself 
quite  independently  interested;    more  interested 

7 


,/ 


THE   IVORY  TOWER 

than  by  any  transaction,  any  chapter  of  inter 
course,  in  her  whole  specifically  filial  history. 
Not  that  it  mattered  indeed  if,  in  all  probability 
—and  positively  so  far  back  as  during  the  time  of 
active  hostilities — this  friend  and  enemy  of  other 
days  had  been  predominantly  in  the  right:  the 
case,  at  the  best  and  for  either  party,  showed  so 
scantly  for  edifying  that  where  was  the  light  in 
which  her  success  could  have  figured  as  a  moral  or 
a  sentimental  triumph  ?  There  had  been  no  real 
beauty  for  her,  at  its  apparent  highest  pitch,  in 
that  walk  of  the  now  more  complacently  valid  of 
the  two  men  across  the  Avenue,  a  walk  taken  as 
she  and  her  companion  had  continued  regularly 
to  take  it  since,  that  he  might  hold  out  his  so 
long  clenched  hand,  under  her  earnest  admoni 
tion,  to  the  antagonist  cut  into  afresh  this  year  by 
sharper  knives  than  any  even  in  Gaw's  armoury. 
They  had  consented  alike  to  what  she  wished,  and 
without  knowing  why  she  most  wished  it:  old 
Frank,  oddly  enough,  because  he  liked  her,  as  she 
felt,  for  herself,  once  she  gave  him  the  chance  and 
took  all  the  trouble;  and  her  father  because — well, 
that  was  an  old  story.  For  a  long  time  now, 
three  or  four  years  at  least,  she  had  had,  as  she 
would  have  said,  no  difficulty  with  him;  and  she 
knew  just  when,  she  knew  almost  just  how,,  the 
change  had  begun  to  show. 

Signal  and  supreme  proof  had  come  to  him  one 
day  that  save  for  his  big  plain  quiet   daughter 

8 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

(quiet,  that  is,  unless  when  she  knocked  over  a 
light  gilt  chair  or  swept  off  a  rash  table-ornament 
in  brushing  expansively  by,)  he  was  absolutely 
alone  on  the  human  field,  utterly  unattended  by 
any  betrayal  whatever  that  a  fellow-creature  could 
like  him  or,  when  the  inevitable  day  should  come, 
could  distinterestedly  miss  him.  She  knew  how 
of  old  her  inexplicable,  her  almost  ridiculous  type 
had  disconcerted  and  disappointed  him;  but  with 
this,  at  a  given  moment,  it  had  come  to  him 
that  she  represented  quantity  and  mass,  that 
there  was  a  great  deal  of  her,  so  that  she  would 
have  pressed  down  even  a  balance  appointed  to 
weigh  bullion;  and  as  there  was  nothing  he  was 
fonder  of  than  such  attestations  of  value  he  had 
really  ended  by  drawing  closer  to  her,  as  who 
should  say,  and  by  finding  countenance  in  the 
breadth  of  personal  and  social  shadow  that  she 
projected.  This  was  the  sole  similitude  about 
him  of  a  living  alternative,  and  it  served  only 
as  she  herself  provided  it.  He  had  actually 
turned  into  a  personal  relation  with  her  as  he 
might  have  turned,  out  of  the  glare  and  the  noise 
and  the  harsh  recognitions  of  the  market,  into 
some  large  cool  dusky  temple;  a  place  where 
idols  other  than  those  of  his  worship  vaguely 
loomed  and  gleamed,  so  that  the  effect  at  moments 
might  be  rather  awful,  but  where  at  least  he  could 
sit  very  still,  could  breathe  very  softly,  could  look 
about  obliquely  and  discreetly,  could  in  fact  wan- 

9 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

der  a  little  on  tiptoe  and  treat  the  place,  with  a 
mixture  of  pride  and  fear,  almost  as  his  own. 

He  had  brooded  and  brooded,  even  as  he  was 
brooding  now;  and  that  habit  she  at  least  had 
in  common  with  him,  though  their  subjects  of 
thought  were  so  different.  Thus  it  was  exactly 
that  she  began  to  make  out  at  the  time  his  actual 
need  to  wonder  at  her,  the  only  fact  outside  his 
proper  range  that  had  ever  cost  him  a  speculative 
impulse,  still  more  a  speculative  failure;  even 
as  she  was  to  make  it  out  later  on  in  the  case  of 
their  Newport  neighbour,  and  to  recognise  above 
all  that  though  a  certain  savour  of  accepted  dis 
comfort  had,  in  the  connection,  to  pervade  her 
father's  consciousness,  no  taste  of  resentment  was 
/needed,  as  in  the  present  case,  to  sweeten  it. 
Nothing  had  more  interested  our  intelligent 
young  woman  than  to  note  in  each  of  these  over 
strained,  yet  at  the  same  time  safely  resting  ac 
cumulators — and  to  note  it  as  a  thing  unprece 
dented  up  to  this  latest  season — an  unexpressed, 
even  though  to  some  extent  invoked,  relief  under 
the  sense,  the  confirmed  suspicion,  of  certain 
anomalies  of  ignorance  and  indifference  as  to 
what  they  themselves  stood  for,  anomalies  they 
could  scarcely  have  begun,  on  the  first  glimmer, 
by  so  much  as  taking  for  realities.  It  had  be 
come  verily,  on  the  part  of  the  poor  bandaged 
and  bolstered  and  heavily-breathing  object  of  her 
present  solicitude,  as  she  had  found  it  on  that 

10 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

of  his  still  comparatively  agile  and  intensely 
acute  critic,  the  queer  mark  of  an  inward  relief  to 
meet,  so  far  as  they  had  arts  or  terms  for  it,  any 
intimation  of  what  she  might  have  to  tell  them. 
From  her  they  would  take  things  they  never  could  1 
have  taken,  and  never  had,  from  anyone  else,  i 
There  were  some  such  intimations  that  her  father, 
of  old,  had  only  either  dodged  with  discernible  art 
or  directly  set  his  little  white  face  against;  he 
hadn't  wanted  them,  and  had  in  fact  been  afraid 
of  them — so  that  after  all  perhaps  his  caring  so 
little  what  went  on  in  any  world  not  subject  to 
his  direct  intelligence  might  have  had  the  quali 
fication  that  he  guessed  she  could  imagine,  and 
that  to  see  her,  or  at  least  to  feel  her,  imagine  was 
like  the  sense  of  an  odd  draught  about  him  when 
doors  and  windows  were  closed. 

Up  in  the  sick  man's  room  the  case  was  quite 
other;  she  had  been  admitted  there  but  three 
times,  very  briefly,  and  a  week  had  elapsed  since 
the  last,  yet  she  had  created  in  him  a  positive 
want  to  communicate,  or  at  any  rate  to  receive 
communication.  She  shouldn't  see  him  again — 
the  pair  of  doctors  and  the  trio  of  nurses  had  been 
at  one  about  that;  but  he  had  caused  her  to  be 
told  that  he  liked  to  know  of  her  coming  and 
hoped  she  would  make  herself  quite  at  home. 
This  she  took  for  an  intended  sign,  a  hint  that 
what  she  had  in  spite  of  difficulties  managed  to 
say  now  kept  him  company  in  the  great  bedimmed 

n 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

and  disinfected  room  from  which  other  society 
was  banished.  Her  father  in  fine  he  ignored  after 
that  not  particularly  beautiful  moment  of  bare 
recognition  brought  about  by  her  at  the  bedside; 
her  father  was  the  last  thing  in  the  world  that  ac 
tually  concerned  him.  But  his  not  ignoring  her 
self  could  but  have  a  positive  meaning;  which 
was  that  she  had  made  the  impression  she  sought. 
Only  would  Graham  Fielder  arrive  in  time  ?  She 
was  not  in  a  position  to  ask  for  news  of  him,  but 
was  sure  each  morning  that  if  there  had  been  any 
gage  of  this  Miss  Mumby,  the  most  sympathetic 
of  the  nurses  and  with  whom  she  had  established 
a  working  intelligence,  would  be  sufficiently  in 
terested  to  come  out  and  speak  to  her.  After 
waiting  a  while,  however,  she  recognised  that 
there  could  be  no  Miss  Mumby  yet  and  went 
over  to  her  father  in  the  great  porch. 

"Don't  you  get  tired,"  she  put  to  him,  "of 
just  sitting  round  here?" 

He  turned  to  her  his  small  neat  finely-wrinkled 
face,  of  an  extreme  yellowish  pallor  and  which 
somehow  suggested  at  this  end  of  time  an  empty 
glass  that  had  yet  held  for  years  so  much  strong 
wine  that  a  faint  golden  tinge  still  lingered  on 
from  it.  "I  can't  get  any  more  tired  than  I  am 
alread}r."  His  tone  was  flat,  weak  and  so  little 
charged  with  petulance  that  it  betrayed  the  long 
habit  of  an  almost  exasperating  mildness.  This 
effect,  at  the  same  time,  so  far  from  suggesting 

12 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

any  positive  tradition  of  civility  was  somehow 
that  of  a  commonness  instantly  and  peculiarly 
exposed.  "It's  a  better  place  than  ours,"  he 
added  in  a  moment.  "But  I  don't  care."  And 
then  he  went  on:  "I  guess  I'd  be  more  tired  in 
your  position." 

"Oh  you  know  I'm  never  tired.  And  now," 
said  Rosanna,  "I'm  too  interested." 

"Well  then,  so  am  I.  Only  for  me  it  ain't  a 
position." 

His  daughter  still  hovered  with  her  vague  look 
about.  "Well,  if  it's  one  for  me  I  feel  it's  a  good 
one.  I  mean  it's  the  right  one." 

Mr.  Gaw  shook  his  little  foot  with  renewed 
intensity,  but  his  irony  was  not  gay.  "The  right 
one  isn't  always  a  good  one.  But  ain't  the  ques 
tion  what  his  is  going  to  be?" 

"Mr.  Fielder's?  Why,  of  course,"  said  Ro 
sanna  quietly.  "That's  the  whole  interest." 

"Well  then,  you've  got  to  fix  it." 

"I  consider  that  I  have  fixed  it — I  mean  if  we 
can  hold  out." 

"Well "-and  Mr.  Gaw  shook  on— "I  guess  / 
can.  It's  pleasant  here,"  he  went  on,  "even  if 
it  is  funny." 

"Funny?"  his  daughter  echoed — yet  inatten 
tively,  for  she  had  become  aware  of  another 
person,  a  middle-aged  woman,  but  with  neatly- 
kept  hair  already  grizzled  and  in  a  white  dress 
covered  with  a  large  white  apron,  who  stood  at 

13 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

the  nearest  opening  of  the  house.  "Here  we 
are,  you  see,  Miss  Mumby — but  any  news?" 
Miss  Gaw  was  instantly  eager. 

"Why  he's  right  there  upstairs,'*  smiled  the 
lady  of  the  apron,  who  was  clearly  well  affected 
to  the  speaker. 

This  young  woman  flushed  for  pleasure.  "Oh 
how  splendid !  But  when  did  he  come?" 

"Early  this  morning — by  the  New  York  boat. 
I  was  up  at  five,  to  change  with  Miss  Ruddle, 
and  there  of  a  sudden  were  his  wheels.  He  seems 
so  nice!"  Miss  Mumby  beamed. 

Rosanna's  interest  visibly  rose,  though  she  was 
prompt  to  explain  it.  "Why  it's  because  he's 
nice!  And  he  has  seen  him?" 

"He's  seeing  him  now — alone.  For  five  min 
utes.  Not  all  at  once."  But  Miss  Mumby  was 
visibly  serene. 

This  made  Miss  Gaw  rejoice.  "I'm  not  afraid. 
It  will  do  him  good.  It  has  got  to!"  she  finely 
declared. 

Miss  Mumby  was  so  much  at  ease  that  she 
could  even  sanction  the  joke.  "More  good  than 
the  strain  of  waiting.  They're  quite  satisfied." 
Rosanna  knew  these  judges  for  Doctor  Root  and 
Doctor  Hatch,  and  felt  the  support  of  her  friend's 
firm  freshness.  "So  we  can  hope,"  this  author 
ity  concluded. 

"Well,  let  my  daughter  run  it — !"  Abel  Gaw 
had  got  up  as  if  this  change  in  the  situation  quali- 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

fied  certain  proprieties,  but  turned  his  small 
sharpness  to  Miss  Mumby,  who  had  at  first 
produced  in  him  no  change  of  posture.  "Well, 
if  he  couldn't  stand  me  I  suppose  it  was  because 
he  knows  me — and  doesn't  know  this  other  man. 
May  Mr.  Fielder  prove  acceptable!"  he  added, 
stepping  off  the  verandah  to  the  path.  But  as 
that  left  Rosanna's  share  in  the  interest  still  ap 
parently  unlimited  he  spoke  again.  "Is  it  going 
to  make  you  settle  over  here  ? " 

This  mild  irony  determined  her  at  once  joining 
him,  and  they  took  leave  together  of  their  friend. 
"Oh  I  feel  it's  right  now!"  She  smiled  back  at 
Miss  Mumby,  whose  agitation  of  a  confirmatory 
hand  before  disappearing  as  she  had  come  testi 
fied  to  the  excellence  of  the  understanding  be 
tween  the  ladies,  and  presently  was  trailing  her 
light  vague  draperies  over  the  grass  beside  her 
father.  They  might  have  been  taken  to  resemble 
as  they  moved  together  a  big  ship  staying  its 
course  to  allow  its  belittled  tender  to  keep  near, 
and  the  likeness  grew  when  after  a  minute  Mr. 
Gaw  himself  stopped  to  address  his  daughter  a 
question.  He  had,  it  was  again  marked,  so  scant 
a  range  of  intrinsic  tone  that  he  had  to  resort 
for  emphasis  or  point  to  some  other  scheme  of 
signs — this  surely  also  of  no  great  richness,  but 
expressive  of  his  possibilities  when  once  you 
knew  him.  "Is  there  any  reason  for  your  not 
telling  me  why  you're  so  worked  up  ?" 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

His  companion,  as  she  paused  for  accommoda 
tion,  showed  him  a  large  flat  grave  face  in  which 
the  general  intention  of  deference  seemed  some 
how  to  confess  that  it  was  often  at  the  mercy— 
and  perhaps  most  in  this  particular  relation — of 
such  an  inward  habit  of  the  far  excursion  as  could 
but  incorrigibly  qualify  for  Rosanna  Gaw  certain 
of  the  forms  of  attention,  certain  of  the  necessi 
ties  of  manner.  She  was,  sketchily  speaking,  so 
much  higher-piled  a  person  than  her  father  that 
the  filial  attitude  in  her  suffered  at  the  best  from 
the  occasional  air  of  her  having  to  come  down 
to  him.  You  would  have  guessed  that  she  was 
not  a  person  to  cultivate  that  air;  and  perhaps 
even  if  very  acute  would  have  guessed  some  other 
things  bearing  on  the  matter  from  the  little  man's 
careful  way  with  her.  This  pair  exhibited  there 
in  the  great  light  of  the  summer  Sunday  morn 
ing  more  than  one  of  the  essential,  or  perhaps 
the  rather  finally  constituted,  conditions  of  their 
intercourse.  Here  was  a  parent  who  clearly  ap 
pealed  to  nobody  in  the  world  but  his  child,  and 
a  child  who  condescended  to  nobody  in  the  world 
but  her  parent;  and  this  with  the  anomaly  of  a 
constant  care  not  to  be  too  humble  on  one  side 
and  an  equal  one  not  to  be  too  proud  on  the 
other.  Rosanna,  her  powerful  exposed  arm  raised 
to  her  broad  shoulder,  slowly  made  her  heavy 
parasol  revolve,  flinging  with  it  a  wide  shadow 
that  enclosed  them  together,  for  their  question 

16 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

and  answer,  as  in  a  great  bestreamered  tent.  "  Do 
I  strike  you'as  worked  up  ?  Why  I've  tried  to  keep 
as  quiet  about  it  as  I  possibly  could — as  one  does 
when  one  wants  a  thing  so  tremendously  much.'* 

His  eyes  had  been  raised  to  her  own,  but  after 
she  had  said  this  in  her  perfunctory  way  they 
sank  as  from  a  sense  of  shyness  and  might  have 
rested  for  a  little  on  one  of  their  tent-pegs.  "Well, 
daughter,  that's  just  what  I  want  to  understand 
—your  personal  motive." 

She  gave  a  sigh  for  this,  a  strange  uninforming 
sigh.  "Ah  father,  'my  personal  motives' !" 

With  this  she  might  have  walked  on,  but  when 
he  barred  the  way  it  was  as  if  she  could  have 
done  so  but  by  stepping  on  him.  "I  don't  com 
plain  of  your  personal  motives — I  want  you  to 
have  all  you're  entitled  to  and  should  like  to 
know  who's  entitled  to  more.  But  couldn't  you 
have  a  reason  once  in  a  while  for  letting  me  know 
what  some  of  your  reasons  are?" 

Her  decent  blandness  dropped  on  him  again, 
and  she  had  clearly  this  time  come  further  to 
meet  him.  "You've  always  wanted  me  to  have 
things  I  don't  care  for — though  really  when  you've 
made  a  great  point  of  it  I've  often  tried.  But 
want  me  now  to  have  this."  And  then  as  he 
watched  her  again  to  learn  what  "this,"  with  the 
visibly  rare  importance  she  attached  to  it,  might 
be:  "To  make  up  to  a  person  for  a  wrong  I  once 
did  him." 

17 


THE   IVORY  TOWER 

"You  wronged  the  man  who  has  come?" 

"Oh  dreadfully !"  Rosanna  said  with  great 
sweetness. 

He  evidently  held  that  any  notice  taken  of 
anyone,  to  whatever  effect,  by  this  great 
daughter  of  his  was  nothing  less  than  an  honour 
done,  and  probably  overdone;  so  what  prepos 
terous  "wrong"  could  count?  The  worst  he 
could  think  of  was  still  but  a  sign  of  her  great 
ness.  "You  wouldn't  have  him  round —  —  ?" 

"Oh  that  would  have  been  nothing !"  she 
laughed;  and  this  time  she  sailed  on  again. 


18 


II 

ROSANNA  found  him  again  after  luncheon  shak 
ing  his  little  foot  from  the  depths  of  a  piazza 
chair,  but  now  on  their  own  scene  and  at  a  point 
where  this  particular  feature  of  it,  the  cool  spread 
ing  verandah,  commanded  the  low  green  cliff  and 
a  part  of  the  immediate  approach  to  the  house 
from  the  seaward  side.  She  left  him  to  the  only 
range  of  thought  of  which  he  was  at  present 
capable — she  was  so  perfectly  able  to  follow  it; 
and  it  had  become  for  that  matter  an  old  story 
that  as  he  never  opened  a  book,  nor  sought  a 
chance  for  talk,  nor  took  a  step  of  exercise,  nor 
gave  in  any  manner  a  sign  of  an  unsatisfied  want, 
the  extent  of  his  vacancy,  a  detachment  in  which 
there  just  breathed  a  hint  of  the  dryly  invidious, 
might  thus  remain  unbroken  for  hours.  She 
knew  what  he  was  waiting  for,  and  that  if  she 
hadn't  been  there  to  see  him  he  would  take  his 
way  across  to  the  other  house  again,  where  the 
plea  of  solicitude  for  his  old  friend's  state  put 
him  at  his  ease  and  where,  moreover,  as  she  now 
felt,  the  possibility  of  a  sight  of  Graham  Fielder 
might  reward  him.  It  was  disagreeable  to  her 
that  he  should  have  such  a  sight  while  she  denied 
it  to  her  own  eyes;  but  the  sense  of  their  common 
want  of  application  for  their  faculties  was  a  thing 

19 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

that  repeatedly  checked  in  her  the  expression  of 
judgments.  Their  idleness  was  as  mean  and  bare 
on  her  own  side,  she  too  much  felt,  as  on  his; 
and  heaven  knew  that  if  he  could  sit  with  screwed- 
up  eyes  for  hours  the  case  was  as  flagrant  in  her 
aimless  driftings,  her  incurable  restless  revolu 
tions,  as  a  pretence  of  "interests"  could  consort 
with. 

She  revolved  and  drifted  then,  out  of  his  sight 
and  in  another  quarter  of  the  place,  till  four 
o'clock  had  passed;  when  on  returning  to  him 
she  found  his  chair  empty  and  was  sure  of  what 
had  become  of  him.  There  was  nothing  else  in 
fact  for  his  Sunday,  as  he  on  that  day  denied 
himself  the  resource  of  driving,  or  rather  of  being 
driven,  from  which  the  claim  of  the  mechanical 
car  had  not,  in  the  Newport  connection,  won 
him,  and  which,  deep  in  his  barouche,  behind  his 
own  admirable  horses,  could  maintain  him  in 
meditation  for  meditation's  sake  quite  as  well  as 
a  poised  rocking-chair.  Left  thus  to  herself, 
though  conscious  she  well  might  have  visitors, 
she  circled  slowly  and  repeatedly  round  the 
gallery,  only  pausing  at  last  on  sight  of  a  gentle 
man  who  had  come  into  view  by  a  path  from 
the  cliff.  He  presented  himself  in  a  minute  as 
Davey  Bradham,  and  on  drawing  nearer  called 
across  to  her  without  other  greeting:  "Won't 
you  walk  back  with  me  to  tea  ?  Gussy  has  sent 
me  to  bring  you." 

20 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

"Why  yes,  of  course  I  will — that's  nice  of 
Gussy,"  she  replied;  adding  moreover  that  she 
wanted  a  walk,  and  feeling  in  the  prospect,  though 
she  didn't  express  this,  a  relief  to  her  tension  and 
a  sanction  for  what  she  called  to  herself  her  tact. 
She  might  without  the  diversion  not  quite  have 
trusted  herself  not  to  emulate,  and  even  with 
the  last  crudity,  her  father's  proceeding;  which 
she  knew  she  should  afterwards  be  ashamed  of. 
"Anyone  that  comes  here,"  she  said,  "must 
come  on  to  you — they'll  know;"  and  when 
Davey  had  replied  that  there  wasn't  the  least 
chance  of  anyone's  not  coming  on  she  moved 
with  him  down  the  path,  at  the  end  of  which  they 
entered  upon  the  charming  cliff  walk,  a  vast 
carpet  of  undivided  lawns,  kept  in  wondrous  con 
dition,  with  a  meandering  right-of-way  for  a  sea 
ward  fringe  and  bristling  wide-winged  villas  that 
spoke  of  a  seated  colony;  many  of  these  huge 
presences  reducing  to  marginal  meanness  their 
strip  of  the  carpet. 

Davey  was,  like  herself,  richly  and  healthily 
replete,  though  with  less  of  his  substance  in 
stature;  a  frankly  fat  gentleman,  blooming  still 
at  eight-and-forty,  with  a  large  smooth  shining 
face,  void  of  a  sign  of  moustache  or  whisker  and 
crowned  with  dense  dark  hair  cropped  close  to 
his  head  after  the  fashion  of  a  French  schoolboy 
or  the  inmate  of  a  jail.  But  for  his  half-a-dozen 
fixed  wrinkles,  as  marked  as  the  great  rivers  of 

21 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

a  continent  on  a  map,  and  his  thick  and  arched 
and  active  eyebrows,  which  left  almost  nothing 
over  for  his  forehead,  he  would  have  scarce  ex 
hibited  features — in  spite  of  the  absence  of  which, 
however,  he  could  look  in  alternation  the  most 
portentous  things  and  the  most  ridiculous.  He 
would  hang  up  a  meaning  in  his  large  empty  face 
as  if  he  had  swung  an  awful  example  on  a  gibbet, 
or  would  let  loose  there  a  great  grin  that  you 
somehow  couldn't  catch  in  the  fact  but  that  per 
vaded  his  expanses  of  cheek  as  poured  wine  per 
vades  water.  He  differed  certainly  from  Rosanna 
in  that  he  enjoyed,  visibly,  all  he  carnally  pos 
sessed — whereas  you  could  see  in  a  moment  that 
she,  poor  young  woman,  would  have  been  con 
tent  with,  would  have  been  glad  of,  a  scantier 
allowance.  "  You'll  find  Cissy  Foy,  to  begin 
with,"  he  said  as  they  went;  "she  arrived  last 
night  and  told  me  to  tell  you  she'd  have  walked 
over  with  me  but  that  Gussy  wants  her  for  some 
thing.  However,  as  you  know,  Gussy  always 
wants  her  for  something — she  wants  everyone  for 
something  so  much  more  than  something  for 
everyone — and  there  are  none  of  us  that  are  not 
worked  hard,  even  though  we  mayn't  bloom  on 
it  like  Cissy,  who,  by  the  way,  is  looking  a  per 
fect  vision." 

"Awfully  lovely ?"  —  Rosanna  clearly  saw  as 
she  asked. 

"Prettier  than  at  any  time  yet,  and  wanting 

22 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

tremendously  to  hear  from  you,  you  know,  about 
your  protege — what's  the  fellow's  name  ?  Graham 
Fielder  ? — whose  arrival  we're  all  agog  about." 

Rosanna  pulled  up  in  the  path;  she  somehow 
at  once  felt  her  possession  of  this  interest  clouded 
—shared  as  yet  as  it  had  been  only  with  her 
father,  whose  share  she  could  control.  It  then 
and  there  came  to  her  in  one  of  the  waves  of 
disproportionate  despair  in  which  she  felt  half 
the  impressions  of  life  break,  that  she  wasn't 
going  to  be  able  to  control  at  all  the  great  par 
ticipations.  She  had  a  moment  of  reaction  against 
what  she  had  done;  she  liked  Gray  to  be  called 
her  protege — forced  upon  her  as  endless  numbers 
of  such  were,  he  would  be  the  only  one  in  the 
whole  collection  who  hadn't  himself  pushed  at 
her;  but  with  the  big  bright  picture  of  the  villas, 
the  palaces,  the  lawns  and  the  luxuries  in  her 
eyes,  and  with  something  like  the  chink  of  money 
itself  in  the  murmur  of  the  breezy  little  waves 
at  the  foot  of  the  cliff,  she  felt  that,  without  her 
having  thought  of  it  enough  in  advance,  she  had 
handed  him  over  to  complications  and  relations. 
These  things  shimmered  in  the  silver  air  of  the 
wondrous  perspective  ahead,  the  region  off  there 
that  awaited  her  present  approach  and  where 
Gussy  hovered  like  a  bustling  goddess  in  the 
enveloping  cloud  of  her  court.  The  man  beside 
her  was  the  massive  Mercury  of  this  urgent  M 
Juno;  but — without  mythological  comparisons,! 

23 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

which  we  make  for  her  under  no  hint  that  she 
'^  couU  herself  _have  dreamed  of  one — she  found 
herself  glad  just  then  that  she  liked  Davey  Brad- 
ham,  and  much  less  sorry  than  usual  that  she 
didn't  respect  him.  An  extraordinary  thing 
happened,  and  all  in  the  instant  before  she  spoke 
again.  It  was  very  strange,  and  it  made  him 
look  at  her  as  if  he  wondered  that  his  words 
should  have  had  so  great  an  effect  as  even  her 
still  face  showed.  There  was  absolutely  no  one, 
roundabout  and  far  and  wide,  whom  she  posi 
tively  wanted  Graham  to  know;  no  not  one 
creature  of  them  all — "all"  figuring  for  her,  while 
she  stood,  the  great  collection  at  the  Bradhams'. 
She  hadn't  thought  of  this  before  in  the  least  as 
it  came  to  her  now;  yet  no  more  had  she  time  to 
be  sure  that  even  with  the  sharper  consciousness 
she  would,  as  her  father  was  apt  to  say,  have 
acted  different.  So  much  was  true,  yet  while 
she  still  a  moment  longer  hung  fire  Davey  rounded 
himself  there  like  something  she  could  compara 
tively  rest  on.  "How  in  {he  world,"  she  put  to 
him  then,  "do  you  know  anything  away  off 
there —  ?  He  has  come  to  his  uncle,  but  so 
quietly  that  I  haven't  yet  seen  him." 

"Why,  my  dear  thing,  is  it  new  to  you  that 
we're  up  and  doing — bright  and  lively  ?  We're 
the  most  intelligent  community  on  all  this  great 
coast,  and  when  precious  knowledge  is  in  the  air 
we're  not  to  be  kept  from  it.  We  knew  at  break- 

24 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

fast  that  the  New  York  boat  had  brought  him, 
and  Gussy  of  course  wants  him  up  to  dinner  to 
night.  Only  Cissy  claims,  you  see,  that  she  has 
rights  in  him  first — rights  beyond  Gussy's,  I 
mean/'  Davey  went  on;  "I  don't  know  that  she 
claims  them  beyond  yours." 

She  looked  abroad  again,  his  companion,  to 
earth  and  sea  and  sky;  she  wondered  and  felt 
threatened,  yet  knowing  herself  at  the  same  time 
a  long  way  off  from  the  point  at  which  menace 
roused  her  to  passion.  She  had  always  to  suffer 
so  much  before  that,  and  was  for  the  present  in 
the  phase  of  feeling  but  weak  and  a  little  sick. 
But  there  was  always  Davey.  She  started  their 
walk  again  before  saying  more,  while  he  himself 
said  things  that  she  didn't  heed.  "I  can't  for 
the  life  of  me  imagine,"  she  nevertheless  at  last 
declared,  "what  Cissy  has  to  do  with  him.  When 
and  where  has  she  ever  seen  ru'm  ?" 

Davey  did  as  always  his  best  to  oblige.  "Some 
where  abroad,  some  time  back,  when  she  was 
with  her  mother  at  some  baths  or  some  cure- 
place.  Though  when  I  think  of  it,"  he  added, 
"it  wasn't  with  the  man  himself — it  was  with 
some  relation:  hasn't  he  an  uncle,  or  perhaps  a 
stepfather  ?  Cissy  seems  to  know  all  about  him, 
and  he  takes  a  great  interest  in  her." 

It  again  all  but  stopped  Rosanna.  "Gray 
Fielder  an  interest  in  Cissy ?" 

"Let  me  not,"  laughed  Davey,  "sow  any  seed 

25 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

of  trouble  or  engage  for  more  than  I  can  stand  to. 
She'll  tell  you  all  about  it,  she'll  clothe  it  in  every 
grace.  Only  I  assure  you  I  myself  am  as  much 
interested  as  anyone,"  he  added — "interested,  I 
mean,  in  the  question  of  whether  the  old  man 
there  has  really  brought  him  out  at  the  last  gasp 
this  way  to  do  some  decent  thing  about  him.  An 
impression  prevails,"  he  further  explained,  "that 
you're  in  some  wonderful  way  in  the  old  wretch's 
confidence,  and  I  therefore  make  no  bones  of  tell 
ing  you  that  your  arrival  on  our  scene  there, 
since  you're  so  good  as  to  consent  to  come,  has 
created  an  impatience  beyond  even  what  your 
appearances  naturally  everywhere  create.  I  give 
you  warning  that  there's  no  limit  to  what  we  want 
to  know." 

Rosanna  took  this  in  now  as  she  so  often  took 
things — working  it  down  in  silence  at  first:  it 
shared  in  the  general  weight  of  all  direct  contri 
butions  to  her  consciousness.  It  might  then, 
when  she  spoke,  have  sunk  deep.  She  looked 
about  again,  in  her  way,  as  if  under  her  constant 
oppression,  and  seeing,  a  little  off  from  their 
gravelled  walk,  a  public  bench  to  which  a  possi 
ble  path  branched  down,  she  said,  on  a  visibly 
grave  decision:  "Look  here,  I  want  to  talk  to 
you — you're  one  of  the  few  people  in  all  your 
crowd  to  whom  I  really  can.  So  come  and  sit 
down." 

Davey  Bradham,  arrested  before  her,  had  an 
26 


THE   IVORY  TOWER 

air  for  his  responsibilities  that  quite  matched 
her  own.  "Then  what  becomes  of  them  all 
there?" 

"I  don't  care  a  hang  what  becomes  of  them. 
But  if  you  want  to  know,"  Rosanna  said,  "I  do 
care  what  becomes  of  Mr.  Fielder,  and  I  trust  you 
enough,  being  as  you  are  the  only  one  of  your  lot 
I  do  trust,  to  help  me  perhaps  a  little  to  do  some 
thing  about  it." 

"Oh,  my  dear  lady,  I'm  not  a  bit  discreet,  you 
know,"  Mr.  Bradham  amusedly  protested;  "Fm 
perfectly  unprincipled  and  utterly  indelicate. 
How  can  a  fellow  not  be  who  likes  as  much  as  I 
do  at  all  times  to  make  the  kettle  boil  and  the 
plot  thicken  ?  IVe  only  got  my  beautiful  intelli 
gence,  though,  as  I  say,  I  don't  in  the  least  want 
to  embroil  you.  Therefore  if  I  can  really  help 
you  as  the  biggest  babbler  alive !" 

She  waited  again  a  little,  but  this  time  with  her 
eyes  on  his  good  worn  worldly  face,  superficially 
so  smooth,  but  with  the  sense  of  it  lined  and 
scratched  and  hacked  across  much  in  the  manner 
of  the  hard  ice  of  a  large  pond  at  the  end  of  a 
long  day's  skating.  The  amount  of  obstreperous 
exercise  that  had  been  taken  on  that  recording 
field  !  The  difference  between  our  pair,  thus  con 
fronted,  might  have  been  felt  as  the  greater  by 
the  very  fact  of  their  outward  likeness  as  crea 
tures  so  materially  weighted;  it  would  have  been 
written  all  over  Rosanna  for  the  considering  eye 

27 


THE   IVORY  TOWER 

that  every  grain  of  her  load,  from  innermost  soul 
to  outermost  sense,  was  that  of  reality  and  sin 
cerity;  whereas  it  might  by  the  same  token  have 
been  felt  of  Davey  that  in  the  temperature  of  life 
as  he  knew  it  his  personal  identity  had  been,  save 
for  perhaps  some  small  tough  lurking  residuum, 
long  since  puffed  away  in  pleasant  spirals  of  va 
pour.  Our  young  woman  was  at  this  moment, 
however,  less  interested  in  quantities  than  in 
qualities  of  candour;  she  could  get  what  passed 
for  it  by  the  bushel,  by  the  ton,  whenever,  right 
or  left,  she  chose  to  chink  her  pocket.  Her  re 
quirement  for  actual  use  was  such  a  glimmer  from 
the  candle  of  truth  as  a  mere  poor  woman  might 
have  managed  to  kindle.  What  was  left  of  pre 
cious  in  Davey  might  thus  have  figured  but  as  a 
candle-end;  yet  for  the  lack  of  it  she  should  per 
haps  move  in  darkness.  And  her  brief  intensity 
of  watch  was  in  a  moment  rewarded;  her  com 
panion's  candle-end  was  his  not  quite  burnt-out 
value  as  a  gentleman.  This  was  enough  for  her, 
and  she  seemed  to  see  her  way.  "If  I  don't 
trust  you  there's  nobody  else  in  all  the  wide  world 
I  can.  So  j'ou've  got  to  know,  and  you've  got 
to  be  good  to  me." 

"Then  what  awful  thing  have  you  done?"  he 
was  saying  to  her  three  minutes  after  they  had 
taken  their  place  temporarily  on  the  bench. 

"Well,  I  got  at  Mr.  Betterman,"  she  said,  "in 
spite  of  all  the  difficulty.  Father  and  he  hadn't 

28 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

spoken  for  years — had  had  long  ago  the  blackest, 
ugliest  difference;  believing  apparently  the  hor- 
ridest  things  of  each  other.  Nevertheless  it  was 
as  father's  daughter  that  I  went  to  him — though 
after  a  little,  I  think,  it  was  simply  for  the  worth 
itself  of  what  I  had  to  tell  him  that  he  listened  to 


me." 


"And  what  you  had  to  tell  him,"  Davey  asked 
while  she  kept  her  eyes  on  the  far  horizon,  "was 
then  that  you  take  this  tender  interest  in  Mr. 
Fielder?" 

"You  may  make  my  interest  as  ridiculous  as 
you  like !" 

"Ah,  my  dear  thing,"  Davey  pleadingly  pro 
tested,  "don't  deprive  me,  please,  of  anything 
nice  there  is  to  know ! " 

"There  was  something  that  had  happened  years 
ago — a  wrong  I  perhaps  had  done  him,  though  in 
perfect  good  faith.  I  thought  I  saw  my  way  to 
make  up  for  it,  and  I  seem  to  have  succeeded 
beyond  even  what  I  hoped." 

"Then  what  have  you  to  worry  about?"  said 
Davey. 

"Just  my  success,"  she  answered  simply. 
"Here  he  is  and  I've  done  it." 

"Made  his  rich  uncle  want  him — who  hadn't 
wanted  him  before?  Is  that  it?" 

"Yes,  interfered  afresh  in  his  behalf — as  I  had 
interfered  long  ago.  When  one  has  interfered 
one  can't  help  wondering,"  she  gravely  explained. 

29 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

"But  dear  lady,  ever  for  his  benefit  of  course/* 
Davey  extemporised. 

"Yes — except  for  the  uncertainty  of  what  is 
for  a  person's  benefit.  It's  hard  enough  to  know," 
said  Rosanna,  "what's  for  one's  own." 

"Oh,  as  to  that,"  Davey  joked,  "I  don't  think 
that  where  mine's  concerned  I've  ever  a  doubt ! 
But  is  the  point  that  the  old  man  had  quarrelled 
with  him  and  that  you've  brought  about  a  re 
conciliation  ?" 

She  considered  again  with  her  far-wandering 
eyes;  as  if  both  moved  by  her  impulse  to  confi 
dence  and  weighted  with  the  sense  of  how  much 
of  it  there  all  was.  "Well,  in  as  few  words  as 
possible,  it  was  like  this.  He's  the  son  but  of  a 
half-sister,  the  daughter  of  Mr.  Betterman's  father 
by  a  second  marriage  which  he  in  his  youth  hadn't 
at  all  liked,  and  who  made  her  case  worse  with  him, 
as  time  went  on,  by  marrying  a  man,  Graham's 
father,  whom  he  had  also  some  strong  objection 
to.  Yes,"  she  summarized,  "he  seems  to  have 
been  difficult  to  please,  but  he's  making  up  for  it 
now.  His  brother-in-law  didn't  live  long  to  suffer 
from  the  objection,  and  the  sister,  Mrs.  Fielder, 
left  a  widow  badly  provided  for,  went  off  with  her 
boy,  then  very  young,  to  Europe.  There,  later 
on,  during  a  couple  of  years  that  I  spent  abroad 
with  my  mother,  we  met  them  and  for  the  time 
saw  much  of  them;  she  and  my  dear  mother 
greatly  took  to  each  other,  they  formed  the  friend- 

30 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

liest  relation,  and  we  had  in  common  that  my 
father's  business  association  with  Mr.  Betterman 
still  at  that  time  subsisted,  though  the  terrible 
man — as  he  then  was — hadn't  at  all  made  it  up 
with  our  friend.  It  was  while  we  were  with  her 
in  Dresden,  however,  that  something  happened 
which  brought  about,  by  correspondence,  some 
renewal  of  intercourse.  This  was  a  matter  on 
which  we  were  in  her  confidence  and  in  which  we 
took  the  greatest  interest,  for  we  liked  also  the 
other  person  concerned  in  it.  An  opportunity 
had  come  up  for  her  to  marry  again,  she  had  prac 
tically  decided  to  embrace  it,  and  of  this,  though 
everything  between  them  had  broken  off  so  short, 
her  unforgiving  brother  had  heard,  indirectly,  in 
New  York." 

Davey  Bradham,  lighting  cigarettes,  and  having 
originally  placed  his  case,  in  a  manner  promptly 
appreciated,  at  his  companion's  disposal,  crowned 
this  now  adjusted  relation  with  a  pertinence  of 
comment.  "And  only  again  of  course  to  be  as 
horrid  as  possible  about  it!  He  hated  husbands 
in  general." 

"Well,  he  himself,  it  was  to  be  said,  had  been 
but  little  of  one.  He  had  lost  his  own  wife  early 
and  hadn't  married  again — though  he  was  to  lose 
early  also  the  two  children  born  to  him.  The 
second  of  these  deaths  was  recent  at  the  time  I 
speak  of,  and  had  had  to  do,  I  imagine,  with  his 
sudden  overture  to  his  absent  relations.  He  let 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

his  sister  know  that  he  had  learnt  her  intention 
and  thought  very  ill  of  it,  but  also  that  if  she 
would  get  rid  of  her  low  foreigner  and  come  back 
with  the  boy  he  would  be  happy  to  see  what  could 
be  done  for  them." 

"What  a  jolly  situation!" — Davey  exhaled  fine 
puffs.  "Her  second  choice  then — at  Dresden- 
was  a  German  adventurer  ? " 

"No,  an  English  one,  Mr.  Northover;  an  ad 
venturer  only  as  a  man  in  love  is  always  one,  I 
suppose,  and  who  was  there  for  us  to  see  and 
extremely  to  approve.  He  had  nothing  to  do 
with  Dresden  beyond  having  come  on  to  join  her; 
they  had  met  elsewhere,  in  Switzerland  or  the 
Tyrol,  and  he  had  shown  an  interest  in  her,  and 
had  made  his  own  impression,  from  the  first. 
She  answered  her  brother  that  his  demand  of  her 
was  excessive  in  the  absence  of  anything  she 
could  recognise  that  she  owed  him.  To  this  he 
replied  that  she  might  marry  then  whom  she  liked, 
but  that  if  she  would  give  up  her  boy  and  send 
him  home,  where  he  would  take  charge  of  him  and 
bring  him  up  to  prospects  she  would  be  a  fool  not 
to  appreciate,  there  need  be  no  more  talk  and 
she  could  lead  her  life  as  she  perversely  preferred. 
This  crisis  came  up  during  our  winter  with  her — 
it  was  a  very  cruel  one,  and  my  mother,  as  I 
have  said,  was  all  in  her  confidence." 

"Of  course"  —Davey  Bradham  abounded;  "and 
you  were  all  in  your  mother's!" 

32 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

Rosanna  leaned  back  on  the  bench,  her  ciga 
rette  between  her  strong  and  rounded  fingers;  she 
sat  at  her  ease  now,  this  chapter  of  history  filling, 
under  her  view,  the  soft  lap  of  space  and  the  com 
fort  of  having  it  well  out,  and  yet  of  keeping  it, 
as  her  friend  somehow  helped  her  to  do,  well 
within  her  control,  more  and  more  operative. 
"Well,  I  was  sixteen  years  old,  and  Gray  at  that 
time  fourteen.  I  was  huge  and  hideous  and  be 
gan  then  to  enjoy  the  advantage — if  advantage 
it  was — of  its  seeming  so  ridiculous  to  treat  the 
monster  I  had  grown  as  negligible  that  I  had  to 
be  treated  as  important.  I  wasn't  a  bit  stupider 
than  I  am  now — in  fact  I  saw  things  much  more 
sharply  and  simply  and  knew  ever  so  much  bet 
ter  what  I  wanted  and  didn't.  Gray  and  I  had 
become  excellent  friends — if  you  want  to  think 
of  him  as  my  'first  passion*  you  are  welcome  to, 
unless  you  want  to  think  of  him  rather  as  my  fifth  ! 
He  was  a  charming  little  boy,  much  nicer  than 
any  I  had  ever  seen;  he  didn't  come  up  higher 
than  my  shoulder,  and,  to  tell  you  all,  I  remember 
how  once,  in  some  game  with  a  party  of  English 
and  American  children  whom  my  mother  had  got 
together  for  Christmas,  I  tried  to  be  amusing  by 
carrying  half-a-dozen  of  them  successively  on  my 
back — all  in  order  to  have  the  pleasure  of  carrying 
him,  whom  I  felt,  I  remember,  but  as  a  feather 
weight  compared  with  most  of  the  others.  Such 
a  romp  was  I — as  you  can  of  course  see  I  must 

33 


THE   IVORY  TOWER 

have  been,  and  at  the  same  time  so  horridly  art 
ful;  which  is  doubtless  now  not  so  easy  for  you 
to  believe  of  me.  But  the  point,"  Rosanna  de 
veloped,  "is  that  I  entered  all  the  way  into  our 
friends'  situation  and  that  when  I  was  with  my 
mother  alone  we  talked  for  the  time  of  nothing 
else.  The  strange,  or  at  least  the  certain,  thing 
was  that  though  we  should  have  liked  so  to  have 
them  over  here,  we  hated  to  see  them  hustled 
even  by  a  rich  relative:  we  were  rich  ourselves, 
though  we  rather  hated  that  too,  and  there  was 
no  romance  for  us  in  being  so  stuffed  up.  We 
liked  Mr.  Northover,  their  so  devoted  friend,  we 
saw  how  they  cared  for  him,  how  even  Graham 
did,  and  what  an  interest  he  took  in  the  boy,  for 
whom  we  felt  that  a  happy  association  with  him, 
each  of  them  so  open  to  it,  would  be  a  great  thing; 
we  threw  ourselves  in  short,  and  I  dare  say  to 
extravagance,  into  the  idea  of  the  success  of  Mr. 
Northover's  suit.  She  was  the  charmingest  little 
woman,  very  pretty,  very  lonely,  very  vague,  but 
very  sympathetic,  and  we  perfectly  understood 
that  the  pleasant  Englishman,  of  great  taste  and 
thoroughly  a  gentleman,  should  have  felt  en 
couraged.  We  didn't  in  the  least  adore  Mr. 
Betterman,  between  whom  and  my  father  the  dif 
ferences  that  afterwards  became  so  bad  were 
already  threatening,  and  when  I  saw  for  myself 
how  the  life  that  might  thus  be  opened  to  him 
where  they  were,  with  his  mother's  marriage  and 

34 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

a  further  good  influence  crowning  it,  would  com 
pare  with  the  awful  game  of  grab,  to  express  it 
mildly,  for  which  I  was  sure  his  uncle  proposed 
to  train  him,  I  took  upon  myself  to  get  more 
roused  and  wound-up  than  I  had  doubtless  any 
real  right  to,  and  to  wonder  what  I  might  really 
do  to  promote  the  benefit  that  struck  me  as  the 
greater  and  defeat  the  one  against  which  my  prej 
udice  was  strong." 

She  had  drawn  up  a  moment  as  if  what  was  to 
come  required  her  to  gather  herself,  while  her 
companion  seemed  to  assure  her  by  the  backward 
set  of  his  head,  that  of  a  man  drinking  at  a  cool 
spout,  how  Ifttle  his  attention  had  lapsed.  "I 
see  at  once,  you  dear  grand  creature,  that  you 
were  from  that  moment  at  the  bottom  of  every 
thing  that  was  to  happen;  and  without  knowing 
yet  what  these  things  were  I  back  you  for  it  now 
up  to  the  hilt." 

"Well,"  she  said,  "I'm  much  obliged,  and  you're 
never  for  an  instant,  mind,  to  fail  me;  but  I 
needed  no  backing  then — I  didn't  even  need  my 
mother's:  I  took  on  myself  so  much  from  the 
moment  my  chance  turned  up." 

"You  just  walked  in  and  settled  the  whole  ques 
tion,  of  course."  He  quite  flaunted  the  luxury 
of  his  interest.  "Clearly  what  moved  you  was 
one  of  those  crowning  passions  of  infancy." 

"Then  why  didn't  I  want,  on  the  contrary,  to 
have  him,  poor  boy,  where  his  presence  would 

35 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

feed  my  flame?"  Rosanna  at  once  inquired. 
"Why  didn't  I  obtain  of  my  mother  to  say  to 
his — for  she  would  have  said  anything  in  the  world 
I  wanted:  'You  just  quietly  get  married,  don't 
disappoint  this  delightful  man;  while  we  take 
Gray  back  to  his  uncle,  which  will  be  awfully  good 
for  him,  and  let  him  learn  to  make  his  fortune, 
the  decent  women  that  we  are  fondly  befriending 
him  and  you  and  your  husband  coming  over 
whenever  you  like,  to  see  how  beautifully  it  an 
swers.'  Why  if  I  was  so  infatuated  didn't  I  do 
that!"  she  repeated. 

He  kept  her  waiting  not  a  moment.  "Just 
because  you  were  so  infatuated.  Just  because 
when  you're  infatuated  you're  sublime."  She 
had  turned  her  eyes  on  him,  facing  his  gorgeous 
hospitality,  but  facing  it  with  a  visible  flush. 
"Rosanna  Gaw" — he  took  undisguised  advantage 
of  her — "you're  sublime  now,  just  as  sublime  as 
you  can  be,  and  it's  what  you  want  to  be.  You 
liked  your  young  man  so  much  that  you  were 
really  capable- 
He  let  it  go  at  that,  for  even  with  his  drop  she 
had  not  completed  his  sense.  But  the  next  thing, 
practically,  she  did  so.  "I've  been  capable  ever 
since — that's  the  point:  of  feeling  that  I  did  act 
upon  him,  that,  young  and  accessible  as  I  found 
him,  I  gave  a  turn  to  his  life." 

"Well,"  Davey  continued  to  comment,  "he's 
not  so  young  now,  and  no  more,  naturally,  are 

36 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

you;  but  I  guess,  all  the  same,  you'll  give  many 
another."  And  then,  as  facing  him  altogether 
more  now,  she  seemed  to  ask  how  he  could  be  so 
sure:  "Why,  if  Pm  so  accessible,  through  my 
tough  old  hide,  how  is  the  exquisite  creature 
formed  to  all  the  sensibilities  for  which  you  sought 
to  provide  going  in  the  least  to  hold  out  ?  He 
owes  you  clearly  everything  he  has  become,  and 
how  can  he  decently  not  want  you  should  know  he 
feels  it?  All's  well  that  ends  well:  that  at  least 
I  foresee  I  shall  want  to  say  when  I've  had  more 
of  the  beginning.  You  were  going  to  tell  me 
how  it  was  in  particular  that  you  got  your  pull." 
She  puffed  and  puffed  again,  letting  her  eyes 
once  more  wander  and  rest;  after  which,  through 
her  smoke,  she  recovered  the  sense  of  the  past. 
"One  Sunday  morning  we  went  together  to  the 
great  Gallery — it  had  been  between  us  for  weeks 
that  he  was  some  day  to  take  me  and  show  me 
the  things  he  most  admired:  that  wasn't  at  all 
what  would  have  been  my  line  with  him.  The 
extent  to  which  he  was  'cleverer'  than  I  and  knew 
about  the  things  I  didn't,  and  don't  know  even 
now—  -!"  Greatly  she  made  this  point.  "And 
yet  the  beauty  was  that  I  felt  there  were  ways  I 
could  help  him,  all  the  same — I  knew  that  even 
with  all  the  things  I  didn't  know,  so  that  they 
remained  ignorances  of  which  I  think  I  wasn't  a 
bit  ashamed:  any  more  in  fact  than  I  am  now, 
there  being  too  many  things  else  to  be  ashamed 

37 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

of.  Never  so  much  as  that  day,  at  any  rate,  had 
I  felt  ready  for  my  part — yes,  it  came  to  me  there 
as  my  part;  for  after  he  had  called  for  me  at  our 
hotel  and  we  had  started  together  I  knew  some 
thing  particular  was  the  matter  and  that  he  of  a 
sudden  didn't  care  for  what  we  were  doing,  though 
we  had  planned  it  as  a  great  occasion  much  before; 
that  in  short  his  thoughts  were  elsewhere  and 
that  I  could  have  made  out  the  trouble  in  his  face 
if  I  hadn't  wished  not  to  seem  to  look  for  it.  I 
hated  that  he  should  have  it,  whatever  it  was — 
just  how  I  hated  it  comes  back  to  me  as  if  from 
yesterday;  and  also  how  at  the  same  time  I  pre 
tended  not  to  notice,  and  he  attempted  not  to 
show  he  did,  but  to  introduce  me,  in  the  rooms, 
to  what  we  had  come  for  instead — which  gave  us 
half-an-hour  that  I  recover  vividly,  recover,  I  as 
sure  you,  quite  painfully  still,  as  a  conscious, 
solemn  little  farce.  What  put  an  end  to  it  was 
that  we  at  last  wandered  away  from  the  great 
things,  the  famous  Madonna,  the  Correggio,  the 
Paul  Veroneses,  which  he  had  quavered  out  the 
properest  remarks  about,  and  got  off  into  a  small 
room  of  little  Dutch  and  other  later  masters, 
things  that  didn't  matter  and  that  we  couldn't 
pretend  to  go  into,  but  where  the  German  sun 
shine  of  a  bright  winter  day  came  down  through 
some  upper  light  and  played  on  all  the  rich  little 
old  colour  and  old  gilding  after  a  fashion  that  of 
a  sudden  decided  me.  'I  don't  care  a  hang  for 

38 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

anything!'  I  stood  before  him  and  boldly  spoke 
out:  'I  haven't  cared  a  hang  since  we  came  in, 
if  you  want  to  know — I  care  only  for  what  you're 
worried  about,  and  what  must  be  pretty  bad, 
since  I  can  see,  if  you  don't  mind  my  saying  it, 
that  it  has  made  you  cry  at  home." 

"He  can  hardly  have  thanked  you  for  thatl" 
Davey's  competence  threw  off. 

"No,  he  didn't  pretend  to,  and  I  had  known  he 
wouldn't;  he  hadn't  to  tell  me  how  a  boy  feels  in 
taking  such  a  charge  from  a  girl.  But  there  he 
was  on  a  small  divan,  swinging  his  legs  a  little  and 
with  his  head — he  had  taken  his  hat  off — back 
against  the  top  of  the  seat  and  the  queerest  look 
in  his  flushed  face.  For  a  moment  he  stared 
hard,  and  then  at  least,  I  said  to  myself,  his  tears 
were  coming  up.  They  didn't  come,  however — 
he  only  kept  glaring  as  in  fever;  from  which  I 
presently  saw  that  I  had  said  not  a  bit  the  wrong 
thing,  but  exactly  the  very  best.  'Oh  if  I  were 
some  good  to  you  !'  I  went  on — and  with  the  sense 
the  next  moment,  ever  so  happily,  that  that  was 
really  what  I  was  being.  'She  has  put  it  upon 
me  to  choose  for  myself — to  think,  to  decide  and 
to  settle  it  that  way  for  both  of  us.  She  has  put 
it  all  upon  me,'  he  said — 'and  how  can  I  choose, 
in  such  a  difficulty,'  he  asked,  'when  she  tells 
me,  and  when  I  believe,  that  she'll  do  exactly  as 
I  say  ?'  'You  mean  your  mother  will  marry  Mr. 
Northover  or  give  him  up  according  as  you  pre- 
39 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

fer?' — but  of  course  I  knew  what  he  meant.  It 
was  a  joy  to  me  to  feel  it  clear  up — with  the  good 
I  had  already  done  him,  at  a  touch,  by  making 
him  speak.  I  saw  how  this  relieved  him  even 
when  he  practically  spoke  of  his  question  as  too 
frightful  for  his  young  intelligence,  his  young 
conscience — literally  his  young  nerves.  It  was  as 
if  he  had  appealed  to  me  to  pronounce  it  posi 
tively  cruel — while  I  had  felt  at  the  first  word 
that  I  really  but  blessed  it.  It  wasn't  too  much 
for  my  young  nerves — extraordinary  as  it  may 
seem  to  you,"  Rosanna  pursued,  "that  I  should 
but  have  wished  to  undertake  at  a  jump  such  a 
very  large  order.  I  wonder  now  from  where  my 
lucidity  came,  but  just  as  I  stood  there  I  saw 
some  things  in  a  light  in  which,  even  with  still 
better  opportunities,  I've  never  so  much  seen 
them  since.  It  was  as  if  I  took  everything  in— 
and  what  everything  meant;  and,  flopped  there 
on  his  seat  and  always  staring  up  at  me,  he  under 
stood  that  I  was  somehow  inspired  for  him." 

"My  dear  child,  you're  inspired  at  this  mo 
ment!" — Davey  Bradham  rendered  the  tribute. 
"It's  too  splendid  to  hear  of  amid  our  greedy 
wants,  our  timid  ideas  and  our  fishy  passions. 
You  ring  out  like  Briinnhilde  at  the  opera.  How 
jolly  to  have  pronounced  his  doom!" 

"Yes,"  she  gravely  said,  "and  you  see  how 
jolly  I  now  find  it.  I  settled  it.  I  was  fate," 
Rosanna  puffed.  "He  recognised  fate — all  the 

40 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

more  that  he  really  wanted  to;  and  you  see  there 
fore,"  she  went  on,  "how  it  was  to  be  in  every 
single  thing  that  has  happened  since." 

"You  stuck  him  fast  there" — Mr.  Bradham 
filled  in  the  picture.  "Yet  not  so  fast  after  all," 
he  understandingly  added,  "but  that  you've  been 
able  to  handle  him  again  as  you  like.  He  does 
in  other  words  whatever  you  prescribe." 

"If  he  did  it  then  I  don't  know  what  I  should 
have  done  had  he  refused  to  do  it  now.  For 
now  everything's  changed.  Everyone's  dead  or 
dying.  And  I  believe,"  she  wound  up,  "that  I 
was  quite  right  then,  that  he  has  led  his  life  and 
been  happy." 

"I  see.  If  he  hadn't  been !"  Her  com 
panion's  free  glance  ranged. 

"He  would  have  had  me  to  thank,  yes.  And 
at  the  best  I  should  have  cost  him  much  !" 

"Everything,  you  mean,  that  the  old  man 
had  more  or  less  from  the  first  in  mind  ?" 

Davey  had  taken  her  up;  but  the  next  mo 
ment,  without  direct  reply,  she  was  on  her  feet. 
"At  any  rate  you  see!"  she  said  to  finish  with 
it. 

"Oh  I  see  a  lot !  And  if  there's  more  in  it  than 
meets  the  eye  I  think  I  see  that  too,"  her  friend 
declared.  "I  want  to  see  it  all  at  any  rate — and 
just  as  you've  started  it.  But  what  I  want  most 
naturally  is  to  see  your  little  darling  himself." 

"Well,  if  I  had  been  afraid  of  you  I  wouldn't 

41 


THE   IVORY  TOWER 

have  spoken.  You  won't  hurt  him/'*  Rosanna 
said  as  they  got  back  to  the  cliff  walk. 

"Hurt  him  ?  Why  I  shall  be  his  great  warning 
light — or  at  least  I  shall  be  yours,  which  is  better 
still."  To  this,  however,  always  pondering,  she 
answered  nothing,  but  stood  as  if  spent  by  her 
effort  and  half  disposed  in  consequence  to  retrace 
her  steps;  against  which  possibility  he  at  once 
protested.  "You  don't  mean  you're  not  coming 
on?" 

She  thought  another  instant;  then  her  eyes 
overreached  the  long  smooth  interval  beyond 
which  the  nondescript  excrescences  of  Gussy's 
"cottage,"  vast  and  florid,  and  in  a  kindred  com 
pany  of  hunches  and  gables  and  pinnacles  con 
fessed,  even  if  in  confused  accents,  to  its  mon 
strous  identity.  The  sight  itself  seemed  after 
all  to  give  her  resolution.  "Yes,  now  for  Cissy  !" 
she  said  and  braved  the  prospect. 


42 


Ill 

HALF-AN-HOUR  later,  however,  she  still  had  this 
young  lady  before  her  in  extended  perspective 
and  as  a  satisfaction,  if  not  as  an  embarrassment, 
to  come;  thanks  to  the  fact  that  Mrs.  Bradham 
had  forty  persons,  or  something  like  it,  though 
all  casually  turning  up,  at  tea,  and  that  she  her 
self  had  perhaps  never  been  so  struck  with  the 
activity  of  the  charming  girl's  response  to  the 
considerations  familiar  alike  to  all  of  them  as 
Gussy's  ideas  about  her.  Gussy 's  ideas  about  her, 
as  about  everything  in  the  world,  could  on  occa 
sion  do  more  to  fill  the  air  of  any  scene  over  which 
Gussy  presided  than  no  matter  what  vociferation 
of  any  massed  crowd  surrounding  that  lady: 
exactly  which  truth  might  have  been  notable  now 
to  Rosanna  in  the  light  of  Cissy's  occasional  clear 
smile  at  her,  always  as  yet  from  a  distance,  dur 
ing  lapses  of  intervals  and  across  shifting  barriers 
of  the  more  or  less  eminent  and  brilliant.  Mrs. 
Bradham's  great  idea — notoriously  the  most  dis 
interested  Gussy  had  been  known,  through  a 
career  rich  in  announced  intentions  and  glorious 
designs,  to  entertain  with  any  coherence — was 
that  by  placing  and  keeping  on  exhibition,  under 
her  eye,  the  loveliest  flower  of  girlhood  a  splendid 
and  confident  society  could  have  wished  to  wear 

43 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

on  its  bosom  she  should  at  once  signally  enhance 
the  dignity  of  the  social  part  played  by  herself 
and  steep  the  precious  object  in  a  medium  in 
which  the  care  of  precious  objects  was  supremely 
understood.  "When  she  does  so  much  for  me 
what  in  the  world  mustn't  I  do  for  her  ?"  Cecilia 
Foy  had  put  that  to  Rosanna  again  and  again 
with  perfect  lucidity,  making  her  sense  of  fair 
play  shine  out  of  it  and  her  cultivation  of  that 
ideal  form  perhaps  not  the  least  of  the  complica 
tions  under  which  our  elder  young  woman,  earnest 
in  everything,  endeavoured  to  stick  to  the  just 
view  of  her.  Cissy  had  from  the  first  appealed 
to  her  with  restrictions,  but  that  was  the  way 
in  which  for  poor  brooding  Rosanna  every  one 
appealed;  only  there  was  in  the  present  case  the 
difference  that  whereas  in  most  cases  the  appeal, 
or  rather  her  view  of  it,  found  itself  somehow 
smothered  in  the  attendant  wrong  possibilities, 
the  interest  of  this  bright  victim  of  Mrs.  Brad- 
ham's  furtherance  worked  clearer,  on  the  whole, 
with  the  closer,  with  the  closest,  relation,  never 
starting  the  questions  one  might  entertain  about 
her  except  to  dispose  of  them,  even  if  when  they 
had  been  disposed  of  she  mostly  started  them 
again. 

Not  often  had  so  big  a  one  at  all  events  been 
started  for  Rosanna  as  when  she  saw  the  girl 
earn  her  keep,  as  they  had  so  often  called  it  to 
gether,  by  multiplying  herself  for  everyone  else 

44 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

about  the  place  instead  of  remaining  as  single 
and  possessable  as  her  anxious  friend  had  come 
over  to  invite  her  to  be.  Present  to  this  observer 
to  the  last  point  indeed,  and  yet  as  nothing  new, 
was  the  impression  of  that  insolence  of  ease  on 
Gussy's  part  which  was  never  so  great  as  when 
her  sense  for  any  relation  was  least  fine  and  least 
true.  She  was  naturally  never  so  the  vulgar  rich 
woman  able  to  afford  herself  all  luxuries  as  when 
I  she  was  most  stupid  about  the  right  enjoyment 
of  these  and  most  brutally  systematic,  as ._  Rp- 
sanna's  inward  voice  phrased  the  matter,  for  some 
jnferior  and  desecrating  use  of  them.  Mrs.  Brad- 
ham  would  deeply  have  resented — as  deeply  as 
a  woman  might  who  had  no  depth — any  imputa 
tion  on  her  view  of  what  would  be  fine  and  great 
for  her  young  friend,  but  Rosanna's  envy  and 
admiration  of  possibilities,  to  say  nothing  of 
actualities,  to  which  this  view  was  quite  blind, 
kept  the  girl  before  her  at  times  as  a  sacrificed, 
truly  an  even  prostituted  creature;  who  yet  also, 
it  had  to  be  added,  could  often  alienate  sympathy 
by  strange,  by  perverse  concurrences.  However, f 
Rosanna  thought,  Cissy  wasn't  in  concurrencej 
now,  but  was  quite  otherwise  preoccupied  thanj 
with  what  their  hostess  could  either  give  her  or) 
take  from  her.  She  was  happy — this  our  young 
woman  perfectly  perceived,  to  her  own  very 
great  increase  of  interest;  so  happy  that,  as  had 
been  repeatedly  noticeable  before,  she  multiplied 

45 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

herself  through  the  very  agitation  of  it,  appear 
ing  to  be,  for  particular  things  they  had  to  say  to 
her,  particular  conversational  grabs  and  snatches, 
all  of  the  most  violent,  they  kept  attempting  and 
mostly  achieving,  at  the  service  of  everyone  at 
once,  and  thereby  as  obliging,  as  humane  a  beauty, 
after  the  fashion  of  the  old  term,  as  could  have 
charmed  the  sight.  What  Rosanna  most  noted 
withal,  and  not  for  the  first  time  either,  every 
observation  she  had  hitherto  made  seeming  now 
but  intensified,  what  she  most  noted  was  the 
huge  general  familiarity,  the  pitch  of  intimacy 
unmodulated,  as  if  exactly  the  same  tie,  from 
person  to  person,  bound  the  whole  company  to 
gether  and  nobody  had  anything  to  say  to  any 
one  that  wasn't  equally  in  question  for  all. 

This,  shfiJtrwaK,  was  the  air  and  the  sound,  the 
common  state,  of  intimacy,  and  again  and  again, 
in  taking  it  in,  she  had  remained  unsure  of  whether 
it  left  her  more  hopelessly  jealous  or  more  rudely 
independent.  She  would  have  liked  to  be  inti 
mate — with  someone  or  other,  not  indeed  with 
every  member  of  a  crowd;  but  the  faculty,  as 
appeared,  hadn't  been  given  her  (for  with  whom 
had  she  ever  exercised  it  ?  not  even  with  Cissy, 
she  felt  now,)  and  it  was  ground  on  which  she 
knew  alternate  languor  and  relief.  The  fact, 
however,  that  so  much  as  all  this  could  be  pres 
ent  to  her  while  she  encountered  greetings,  ac 
cepted  tea,  and  failed  of  felicity  before  forms  of 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

address  for  the  most  part  so  hilarious,  or  at  least 
so  ingenious,  as  to  remind  her  further  that  she 
might  never  expect  to  be  funny  either — that 
fact  might  have  shown  her  as  hugging  a  treasure 
of  consciousness  rather  than  as  seeking  a  soil  for  ) 
its  interment.  What  they  all  took  for  granted ! ' 
—this  again  and  again  had  been  before  her;  and 
never  so  as  when  Gussy  Bradham  after  a  little 
became  possessed  of  her  to  the  extent  of  their 
sharing  a  settee  in  one  of  the  great  porches  on 
the  lawny  margin  of  which,  before  sundry  over- 
archings  in  other  and  quite  contradictious  archi 
tectural  interests  began  to  spread,  a  dozen  dis 
persed  couples  and  trios  revolved  and  lingered  in 
sight.  How  was  he,  the  young  man  at  the  other  v 
house,  going  to  like  these  enormous  assumptions  ? 
—that  of  a  sudden  oddly  came  to  her;  so  far  in 
deed  as  it  was  odd  that  Gussy  should  suggest 
such  questions.  She  suggested  questions  in  her 
own  way  at  all  times;  Rosanna  indeed  mostly 
saw  her  in  a  sort  of  immodest  glare  of  such,  the 
chief  being  doubtless  the  wonder,  never  assuaged, 
of  how  any  circle  of  the  supposed  amenities  could 
go  on  "putting  up"  with  her.  The  present  was 
as  a  fact  perhaps  the  first  time  our  young  woman 
had  seen  her  in  the  light  of  a  danger  to  herself. 
If  society,  or  what  they  called  such,  had  to  reckon 
with  her  and  accepted  the  charge,  that  was  so 
ciety's  own  affair — it  appeared  on  the  whole  to 
understand  its  interest;  but  why  should  she, 

47 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

Rosanna  Gaw,  recognise  a  complication  she  had 
done  nothing  ever  to  provoke?  It  was  literally 
as  if  the  reckoning  sat  there  between  them  and 
all  the  terms  they  had  ever  made  with  felt  differ 
ences,  intensities  of  separation  and  opposition, 
had  now  been  superseded  by  the  need  for  fresh 
ones — forms  of  contact  and  exchange,  forms  of 
pretended  intercourse,  to  be  improvised  in  pres 
ence  of  new  truths. 

So  it  was  at  any  rate  that  Rosanna's  imagina 
tion  worked  while  she  asked  herself  if  there 
mightn't  be  something  in  an  idea  she  had  more 
than  once  austerely  harboured — the  possibility 
that  Mrs.  Bradham  could  on  occasion  be  afraid 
of  her.  If  this  lady's  great  note  was  that  of  an 
astounding  assurance  based  on  approved  im 
punity,  how,  certainly,  should  a  plain  dull  shy 
spinster,  with  an  entire  incapacity  for  boldness 
and  a  perfect  horror,  in  general,  of  intermeddling, 
have  broken  the  spell  ? — especially  as  there  was 
no  other  person  in  the  world,  not  one,  whom  she 
could  have  dreamed  of  wishing  to  put  in  fear. 
Deep  was  the  discomfort  for  Miss  Gaw  of  losing 
with  her  entertainer  the  commonest  advantage 
she  perhaps  knew,  that  of  her  habit  of  escape 
from  the  relation  of  dislike,  let  alone  of  hostility, 
through  some  active  denial  for  the  time  of  any 
relation  at  all.  What  was  there  in  Gussy  that 
rendered  impossible  to  Rosanna's  sense  this  very 
vulgarest  of  luxuries  ?  She  gave  her  always  the 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

impression  of  looking  at  her  with  an  exaggeration 
of  ease,  a  guarded  penetration,  that  consciously 
betrayed  itself;  though  how  could  one  know, 
after  all,  that  this  wasn't  the  horrid  nature  of 
her  look  for  everyone  ? — which  would  have  been 
publicly  denounced  if  people  hadn't  been  too 
much  involved  with  her  to  be  candid.  With  her 
wondrous  bloom  of  life  and  health  and  her  hard 
confidence  that  had  nothing  to  do  with  sympathy, 
Gussy  might  have  presented  it  as  a  matter  of 
some  pusillanimity,  her  present  critic  at  the  same 
time  felt,  that  one  should  but  detect  the  displeas 
ing  in  such  an  exhibition  of  bright  activity.  The 
only  way  not  to  stand  off  from  her,  no  doubt, 
was  to  be  of  her  "bossed"  party  and  crew,  or  in 
other  words  to  be  like  everyone  else;  and  per 
haps  one  might  on  that  condition  have  enjoyed 
as  a  work  of  nature  or  even  of  art,  an  example 
of  all-efficient  force,  her  braveries  of  aspect  and 
attitude,  resources  of  resistance  to  time  and 
thought,  things  not  of  beauty,  for  some  unyield 
ing  reason,  and  quite  as  little  of  dignity,  but 
things  of  assertion  and  application  in  an  extra 
ordinary  degree,  things  of  a  straight  cold  radiance 
and  of  an  emphasis  that  was  like  the  stamp  of 
hard  flat  feet.  Even  if  she  was  to  be  envied  it 
would  be  across  such  gulfs;  as  it  was  indeed  one 
couldn't  so  much  as  envy  her  the  prodigy  of  her 
"figure,"  which  had  been  at  eighteen,  as  one  had 
heard,  that  of  a  woman  of  forty  and  was  now  at 

49 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

forty,  one  saw,  that  of  a  girl  of  eighteen:  such 
a  state  of  the  person  wasn't  human,  to  the  younger 
woman's  sombre  sense,  but  might  have  been  that 
of  some  shining  humming  insect,  a  thing  of  the 
long-constricted  waist,  the  minimised  yet  capari 
soned  head,  the  fixed  disproportionate  eye  and 
tough  transparent  wing,  gossamer  guaranteed. 
With  all  of  which,  however,  she  had  pushed 
through  every  partition  and  was  in  the  centre 
of  her  guest's  innermost  preserve  before  she  had 
been  heard  coming. 

"It's  too  lovely  that  you  should  have  got  him 
to  do  what  he  ought — that  dreadful  old  man  ! 
But  I  don't  know  if  you  feel  how  interesting  it's 
all  going  to  be;  in  fact  if  you  know  yourself  how 
wonderful  it  is  that  he  has  already — Mr.  Fielder 
has,  I  mean — such  a  tremendous  friend  in  Cissy." 

Rosanna  waited,  facing  her,  noting  her  extra 
ordinary  perfections  of  neatness,  of  elegance,  of 
arrangement,  of  which  it  couldn't  be  said  whether 
they  most  handed  over  to  you,  as  on  some 
polished  salver,  the  clear  truth  of  her  essential 
commonness  or  transposed  it  into  an  element 
that  could  please,  that  could  even  fascinate,  as 
a  supreme  attestation  of  care.  "Take  her  as  an 
advertisement  of  all  the  latest  knowledges  of 
how  to  'treat'  every  inch  of  the  human  surface 
and  where  to  'get'  every  scrap  of  the  personal 
envelope,  so  far  as  she  is  enveloped,  and  she  does 
achieve  an  effect  sublime  in  itself  and  thereby 

50 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

absolute  in  a  wavering  world" — with  so  much 
even  as  that  was  Miss  Gaw  aware  of  helping  to 
fill  for  her  own  use  the  interval  before  she  spoke. 
"No,"  she  said,  "I  know  nothing  of  what  any 
of  you  may  suppose  yourselves  to  know."  After 
which,  however,  with  a  sudden  inspiration,  a 
quick  shift  of  thought  as  though  catching  an 
alarm,  "I  haven't  seen  Mr.  Fielder  for  a  very 
long  time,  haven't  seen  him  at  all  yet  here,"  she 
added;  "but  though  I  hoped  immensely  he  would 
come,  and  am  awfully  glad  he  has,  what  I  want 
for  him  is  to  have  the  very  best  time  he  possibly 
can;  a  much  better  one  than  I  shall  myself  at  all 
know  how  to  help  him  to." 

"Why,  aren't  you  helping  him  to  the  greatest 
time  he  can  have  ever  had  if  you've  waked  up 
his  uncle  to  a  sense  of  decency  ? "  Gussy  demanded 
with  her  brightest  promptness.  "You  needn't 
think,  Rosanna,"  she  proceeded  with  a  well-nigh 
fantastic  development  of  that  ease,  "you  needn't 
think  you're  going  to  be  able  to  dodge  the  least 
little  consequence  of  your  having  been  so  won 
derful.  He's  just  going  to  owe  you  everything, 
and  to  follow  that  feeling  up;  so  I  don't  see  why 
you  shouldn't  want  to  let  him — it  would  be  so 
mean  of  him  not  to ! — or  be  deprived  of  the  credit 
of  so  good  a  turn.  When  I  do  things" — Gussy 
always  had  every  account  of  herself  ready — "I 
want  to  have  them  recognised;  I  like  to  make 
them  pay,  without  the  least  shame,  in  the  way 

51 


THE   IVORY  TOWER 

of  glory  gained.  However,  it's  between  your 
selves,"  her  delicacy  conceded,  "and  how  can 
one  judge — except  just  to  envy  you  such  a  lovely 
relation  ?  All  I  want  is  that  you  should  feel  that 
here  we  are  if  you  do  want  help.  He  should  have 
here  the  best  there  is,  and  should  have  it,  don't 
you  think  ?  before  he  tumbles  from  ignorance 
into  any  mistake — mistakes  have  such  a  way  of 
sticking.  So  don't  be  unselfish  about  him,  don't 
sacrifice  him  to  the  fear  of  using  your  advantage: 
what  are  such  advantages  as  you  enjoy  meant 
for — all  of  them,  I  mean — but  to  be  used  up  to 
the  limit  ?  You'll  see  at  any  rate  what  Cissy 
says — she  has  great  ideas  about  him.  I  mean," 
said  Mrs.  Bradham  with  a  qualification  in  which 
the  expression  of  Rosanna's  still  gaze  suddenly 
seemed  reflected,  "I  mean  that  it's  so  interesting 
she  should  have  all  the  clues." 

Rosanna  still  gazed;  she  might  even  after  a 
little  have  struck  a  watcher  as  held  in  spite  of 
herself  by  some  heavy  spell.  It  was  an  old  sense 
— she  had  already  often  had  it:  when  once  Gussy 
had  got  her  head  up,  got  away  and  away  as  Davey 
called  it,  she  might  appear  to  do  what  she  would 
with  her  victim;  appear,  that  is,  to  Gussy  her 
self — the  appearance  never  corresponded  for  Miss 
Gaw  to  an  admission  of  her  own.  Behind  the 
appearance,  at  all  events,  things  on  one  side  and 
the  other  piled  themselves  up,  and  Rosanna  cer 
tainly  knew  what  they  were  on  her  side.  Never- 

52 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

theless  it  was  as  a  vocal  note  too  faintly  quavered 
through    some    loud    orchestral    sound    that    she 

heard  herself  echo:   "The  clues ?" 

"Why,  it's  so  funny  there  should  be  such  a 
lot — and  all  gathered  about  here!"  To  this  at 
testation  of  how  everything  in  the  world,  for  that 
matter,  was  gathered  right  there  Rosanna  felt 
herself  superficially  yield;  and  even  before  she 
knew  what  was  coming — for  something  clearly 
was — she  was  strangely  conscious  of  a  choice 
somehow  involved  in  her  attitude  and  dependent 
on  her  mind,  and  this  too  as  at  almost  the  acutest 
moment  of  her  life.  What  it  came  to,  with  the 
presentiment  of  forces  at  play  such  as  she  had 
really  never  yet  had  to  count  with,  was  the  ques 
tion,  all  for  herself,  of  whether  she  should  be 
patently  lying  in  the  profession  of  a  readiness  to 
hand  the  subject  of  her  interest  over  unreservedly 
to  all  waiting,  all  so  remarkably  gathering  con 
tacts  and  chances,  or  whether  the  act  wouldn't 
partake  of  the  very  finest  strain  of  her  past  sin 
cerity.  She  was  to  remember  the  moment  later 
on  as  if  she  had  really  by  her  definition,  by  her 
selection,  "behaved" — fairly  feeling  the  breath 
of  her  young  man's  experience  on  her  cheek  be 
fore  knowing  with  the  least  particularity  what  it 
would  most  be,  and  deciding  then  and  there  to 
swallow  down  every  fear  of  any  cost  of  anything 
to  herself.  She  felt  extraordinary  in  the  presence 
of  symptoms,  symptoms  of  life,  of  death,  of  dan- 

53 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

ger,  of  delight,  of  what  did  she  know  ?  But  this 
it  was  exactly  that  cast  derision,  by  contrast,  on 
such  poor  obscurities  as  her  feelings,  and  settled 
it  for  her  that  when  she  had  professed  a  few  min 
utes  back  that  she  hoped  they  would  all,  for  his 
possible  pleasure  in  it,  catch  him  up  and,  so  far 
as  they  might,  make  him  theirs,  she  wasn't  to 
have  spoken  with  false  frankness.  Queer  enough 
at  the  same  time,  and  a  wondrous  sign  of  her 
state  of  sensibility,  that  she  should  see  symptoms 
glimmer  from  so  very  far  off.  What  was  this  one 
that  was  already  in  the  air  before  Mrs.  Bradham 
had  so  much  as  answered  her  question  ? 

I  Well,  the  next  moment  at  any  rate  she  knew, 
and  more  extraordinary  then  than  anything  was 
the  spread  of  her  apprehension,  off  somehow  to 
the  incalculable,  under  Gussy's  mention  of  a 
name.  What  did  this  show  most  of  all,  however, 
but  how  little  the  intensity  of  her  private  associa 
tion  with  the  name  had  even  yet  died  out,  or  at 
least  how  vividly  it  could  revive  in  a  connection 
by  which  everything  in  her  was  quickened  ? 
"Haughty"  Vint,  just  lately  conversed  with  by 
Cissy  in  New  York,  it  appeared,  and  now  com 
ing  on  to  the  Bradhams  from  one  day  to  another, 
had  fed  the  girl  with  information,  it  also,  and 
more  wonderfully,  transpired — information  about 
Gray's  young  past,  all  surprisingly  founded  on 
close  contacts,  the  most  interesting,  between  the 
pair,  as  well  as  the  least  suspected  ever  by  Ro- 

54 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

sanna:  to  such  an  effect  that  the  transmitted 
trickle  of  it  had  after  a  moment  swelled  from 
Gussy's  lips  into  a  stream  by  which  our  friend's 
consciousness  was  flooded.  " Clues "  these  con 
nections  might  well  be  called  when  every  touch 
could  now  set  up  a  vibration.  It  hummed  away 
at  once  like  a  pressed  button — if  she  had  been 
really  and  in  the  least  meanly  afraid  of  complica 
tions  she  might  now  have  sat  staring  at  one  that 
would  do  for  oddity,  for  the  oddity  of  that  rela 
tion  of  her  own  with  Cissy's  source  of  anecdote 
which  could  so  have  come  and  gone  and  yet 
thrown  no  light  for  her  on  anything  but  itself; 
little  enough,  by  what  she  had  tried  to  make  of 
it  at  the  time,  though  that  might  have  been.  It 
had  meanwhile  scarce  revived  for  her  otherwise, 
even  if  reviving  now,  as  we  have  said,  to  intensity, 
that  Horton  Vint's  invitation  to  her  some  three 
years  before  to  bestow  her  hand  upon  him  in 
marriage  had  been  attended  by  impressions  as 
singular  perhaps  as  had  ever  marked  a  like  case 
in  an  equal  absence  of  outward  show.  The  con 
nection  with  him  remaining  for  her  had  simply 
been  that  no  young  man — in  the  clear  American 
social  air — had  probably  ever  approached  a 
young  woman  on  such  ground  with  so  utter  a 
lack  of  ostensible  warrant  and  had  yet  at  the 
same  time  so  saved  the  situation  for  himself,  or 
for  what  he  might  have  called  his  dignity,  and 
even  hers;  to  the  positive  point  of  his  having 

55 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

left  her  with  the  mystery,  in  all  the  world,  that 
she  could  still  most  pull  out  from  old  dim  con 
fusions  to  wonder  about,  and  wonder  all  in  vain, 
when  she  had  nothing  better  to  do.  Everything 
was  over  between  them  save  the  fact  that  they 
hadn't  quarrelled,  hadn't  indeed  so  much  as  dis 
cussed;  but  here  withal  was  association,  asso 
ciation  unquenched — from  the  moment  a  fresh 
breath,  as  just  now,  could  blow  upon  it.  He  had 
had  the  appearance — it  was  unmistakeable — of 
absolutely  believing  she  might  accept  him  if  he 
but  put  it  to  her  lucidly  enough  and  let  her  look 
at  him  straight  enough;  and  the  extraordinary 
thing  was  that,  for  all  her  sense  of  this  at  the 
hour,  she  hadn't  imputed  to  him  a  real  fatuity. 
[  It  had  remained  with  her  that,  given  certain 
other  facts,  no  incident  of  that  order  could  well 
have  had  so  little  to  confess  by  any  of  its  aspects 
to  the  taint  of  vulgarity.  She  had  seen  it,  she 
believed,  as  he  meant  it,  meant  it  with  entire 
conviction:  he  had  intended  a  tribute,  of  a  high 
order,  to  her  intelligence,  which  he  had  counted 
on,  or  at  least  faced  with  the  opportunity,  to 
recognise  him  as  a  greater  value,  taken  all  round, 
appraised  by  the  whole  suitability,  than  she  was 
likely  ever  again  to  find  offered.  He  was  of  course 
to  take  or  to  leave,  and  she  saw  him  stand  there 
in  that  light  as  he  had  then  stood,  not  pleading, 
not  pressing,  not  pretending  to  anything  but  the 
wish  and  the  capacity  to  serve,  only  holding  out 

56 


THE  IVORY  TOWERS 

her  chance,  appealing  to  her  judgment,  inviting 
her  inspection,  meeting  it  without  either  a  shade 
of  ambiguity  or,  so  faj  as  she  could  see,  any  vanity 
beyond  the  facts.  It  had  all  been  wonderful 
enough,  and  not  least  so  that,  alth'ough  abso 
lutely  untouched  and  untempted,  perfectly  lucid 
on  her  own  side  and  perfectly  inaccessible,  she 
had  in  a  manner  admired  him,  in  a  manner  al 
most  enjoyed  him,  in  the  act  of  denying  him 
hope.  Extraordinary  in  especial  had  it  been  that 
he  was  probably  right,  right  about  his  value, 
right  about  his  rectitude,  of  conscious  intention  at 
least,  right  even  as  to  his  general  calculation  of 
effect,  an  effect  probably  producible  on  most 
women;  right  finally  in  judging  that  should  he 
strike  at  all  this  would  be  the  one  way.  It  was 
only  less  extraordinary  that  no  faintest  shade  of 
regret,  no  lightest  play  of  rueful  imagination,  no 
subordinate  stir  of  pity  or  wonder,  had  attended 
her  memory  of  having  left  him  to  the  mere  cold 
comfort  of  reflection.  It  was  his  truth  that  had 
fallen  short,  not  his  error;  the  soundness,  as  it 
were,  of  his  claim — so  far  as  his  fine  intelligence, 
matching  her  own,  that  is,  could  make  it  sound — 
had  had  nothing  to  do  with  its  propriety.  She 
had  refused  him,  none  the  less,  without  disliking 
him,  at  the  same  time  that  she.  was  at  no  mo 
ment  afterwards  conscious  of  having  cared  whether 
he  had  suffered.  She  had  been  too  unaware  of 
the  question  even  to  remark  that  she  seemed 

57 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

indifferent;  though  with  a  vague  impression — so 
far  as  that  went — that  suffering  was  not  in  his 
chords.  His  acceptance  of  his  check  she  could 
but  call  inscrutably  splendid — inscrutably  per 
haps  because  she  couldn't  quite  feel  that  it  had 
left  nothing  between  them.  Something  there 
was,  something  there  had  to  be,  if  only  the  marvel, 
so  to  say,  of  her  present,  her  permanent,  back 
ward  vision  of  the  force  with  which  they  had 
touched  and  separated.  It  stuck  to  her  somehow 
that  they  had  touched  still  more  than  if  they  had 
loved,  held  each  other  still  closer  than  if  they 
had  embraced:  to  such  and  so  strange  a  tune 
had  they  been  briefly  intimate.  Would  any  man 
ever  look  at  her  so  for  passion  as  Mr.  Vint  had 
looked  for  reason  ?  and  should  her  own  eyes 
ever  again  so  visit  a  man's  depths  and  gaze  about 
in  them  unashamed  to  a  tune  to  match  that  ad 
venture  ?  Literally  what  they  had  said  was 
comparatively  unimportant — once  he  had  made 
his  errand  clear;  whereby  the  rest  might  all  have 
been  but  his  silent  exhibition  of  his  personality, 
so  to  name  it,  his  honour,  his  assumption,  his 
situation,  his  life,  and  that  failure  on  her  own 
part  to  yield  an  inch  which  had  but  the  more 
let  him  see  how  straight  these  things  broke  upon 
her.  \  For  all  the  straightness,  it  was  true,  the 
fact  that  might  most  have  affected,  not  to  say 
concerned,  her  had  remained  the  least  expressed. 
It  wasn't  for  her  now  to  know  what  difference 

58 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

it  could  have  made  that  he  was  in  relation  with 
Gray  Fielder;  incontestably,  however,  their  re 
lation,  or  their  missing  of  one,  hers  and  Haughty's, 
flushed  anew  in  the  sudden  light. \ 

"Oh  I'm  so  glad  he  has  good  friends  here  then 
—with  such  a  clever  one  as  Mr.  Vint  we  can  cer 
tainly  be  easy  about  him.'*  So  much  Rosanna 
heard  herself  at  last  say,  and  it  would  doubtless 
have  quite  served  for  assent  to  Gussy's  revela 
tion  without  the  further  support  given  her  by 
the  simultaneous  convergence  upon  them  of  va 
rious  members  of  the  party,  who  exactly  struck 
our  young  woman  as  having  guessed,  by  the  sight 
of  hostess  and  momentous  guest  withdrawn  to 
gether,  that  the  topic  of  the  moment  was  there 
to  be  plucked  from  their  hands.  Rosanna  was 
now  on  her  feet — she  couldn't  sit  longer  and  just 
take  things;  and  she  was  to  ask  herself  after 
wards  with  what  cold  stare  of  denial  she  mightn't 
have  appeared  quite  unprecedentedly  to  face  the 
inquiring  rout  under  the  sense  that  now  certainly, 
if  she  didn't  take  care,  she  should  have  nothing 
left  of  her  own.  It  wasn't  that  they  weren't, 
all  laughter  and  shimmer,  all  senseless  sound  and 
expensive  futility,  the  easiest  people  in  the  world 
to  share  with,  and  several  the  very  prettiest  and 
pleasantest,  of  the  vaguest  insistence  after  all, 
the  most  absurdly  small  awareness  of  what  they 
were  eager  about;  but  that  of  the  three  or  four 
things  then  taking  place  at  once  the  brush  across 

59 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

her  heart  of  Gray's  possible  immediate  question, 
"Have  you  brought  me  over  then  to  live  with 
these—  -?"  had  most  in  common  with  alarm.  It 
positively  helped  her  indeed  withal  that  she 
found  herself,  the  next  thing,  greeting  with  more 
sincerity  of  expression  than  she  had,  by  her  con 
sciousness,  yet  used  Mrs.  Bradham's  final  leap 
to  action  in  the  form  of  "I  want  him  to  dinner 
of  course  right  off!"  She  said  it  with  the  big 
brave  laugh  that  represented  her  main  mercy  for 
the  general  public  view  of  her  native  eagerness, 
an  eagerness  appraised,  not  to  say  proclaimed, 
by  herself  as  a  passion  for  the  service  of  society, 
and  in  connection  with  which  it  was  mostly  agreed 
that  she  never  so  drove  her  flock  before  her  as 
when  paying  this  theoretic  tribute  to  grace  of 
manner.  Before  Rosanna  could  ejaculate,  moved 
though  she  was  to  do  so,  the  question  had  been 
taken  up  by  the  extremely  pretty  person  who 
was  known  to  her  friends,  and  known  even  to 
Rosanna,  as  Minnie  Undle  and  who  at  once  put 
in  a  plea  for  Mr.  Fielder's  presence  that  evening, 
her  own  having  been  secured  for  it.  Before  such 
a  rate  of  procedure  as  this  evocation  implied  even 
Gussy  appeared  to  recoil,  but  with  a  prompt 
proviso  in  favour  of  the  gentleman's  figuring 
rather  on  the  morrow,  when  Mrs.  Undle,  since 
she  seemed  so  impatient,  might  again  be  of  the 
party.  Mrs.  Undle  agreed  on  the  spot,  though 
by  this  time  Rosarma's  challenge  had  ceased  to 

60 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

hang  fire.  "But  do  you  really  consider  that  you 
know  him  so  much  as  that?" — she  let  Gussy 
have  it  straight,  even  if  at  the  disadvantage  that 
there  were  now  as  ever  plenty  of  people  to  react, 
to  the  last  hilarity,  at  the  idea  that  acquaintance 
enjoyed  on  either  side  was  needfully  imputable 
to  these  participations.  "That's  just  why — if  we 
don't  know  him!"  Mrs.  Undle  further  contrib 
uted;  while  Gussy  declined  recognition  of  the 
relevance  of  any  word  of  Miss  Gaw's.  She  de 
clined  it  indeed  in  her  own  way,  by  a  yet  stiffer 
illustration  of  her  general  resilience;  an  "Of 
course  I  mean,  dear,  that  I  look  to  you  to  bring 
him!"  expressing  sufficiently  her  system. 

"Then  you  really  expect  him  when  his  uncle's 
dying—  -?"  sprang  in  all  honesty  from  Ro- 
sanna's  lips;  to  be  taken  up  on  the  instant,  how 
ever,  by  a  voice  that  was  not  Gussy's  and  that 
rang  clear  before  Gussy  could  speak. 

"There  can't  be  the  least  question  of  it — even 
if  we're  dying  ourselves,  or  even  if  I  am  at  least !" 
was  what  Rosanna  heard;  with  Cissy  Foy,  of  a 
sudden  supremely  exhibited,  giving  the  case  at 
once  all  happy  sense,  all  bright  quick  harmony 
with  their  general  immediate  interest.  She  pressed 
to  Rosanna  straight,  as  if  nothing  as  yet  had  had 
time  to  pass  between  them — which  very  little 
in  fact  had;  with  the  result  for  our  young  woman 
of  feeling  helped,  by  the  lightest  of  turns,  not  to 
be  awkward  herself,  or  really,  what  came  to  the 

61 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

same  thing,  not  to  be  anything  herself.  It  was  a 
fine  perception  she  had  had  before — of  how  Cissy 
could  on  occasion  "do"  for  one,  and  this,  all  ex 
traordinarily  and  in  a  sort  of  double  sense,  by 
quenching  one  in  her  light  at  the  very  moment 
she  offered  it  for  guidance.  She  quenched  Gussy, 
she  was  the  single  person  who  could,  Gussy  al 
most  gruntingly  consenting;  she  quenched  Minnie 
Undle,  she  cheapened  every  other  presence,  scat 
tering  lovely  looks,  multiplying  happy  touches, 
grasping  Rosanna  for  possession,  yet  at  the  same 
time,  as  with  her  free  hand,  waving  away  every 
other  connection:  so  that  a  minute  or  two  later 
— for  it  scarce  seemed  more — the  pair  were  iso 
lated,  still  on  the  verandah  somewhere,  but  in 
tensely  confronted  and  talking  at  ease,  or  in  a 
way  that  had  to  pass  for  ease,  with  its  not  matter 
ing  at  all  whether  their  companions,  dazzled  and 
wafted  off,  had  dispersed  and  ceased  to  be,  or 
whether  they  themselves  had  simply  been  floated 
to  where  they  wished  on  the  great  surge  of  the 
girl's  grace.  The  girl's  grace  was,  after  its  manner, 
such  a  force  that  Miss_  Ga^vv  had  had  repeatedly, 
on  past  occasions,  to  doubt  even  while  she  recog 
nised — for  could  a  young  creature  you  weren't 
quite  sure  of  use  a  weapon  of  such  an  edge  only 
for  good  ?  The  young  creature  seemed  at  any 
rate  now  as  never  yet  to  give  out  its  play  for  a 
thing  to  be  counted  on  and  trusted;  and  with 
Gussy  Bradham  herself  shown  just  there  behind 

62 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

them  as  letting  it  take  everything  straight  out 
of  her  hands,  nobody  else  at  all  daring  to  touch, 
what  were  you  to  do  but  verily  feel  distinguished 
by  its  so  wrapping  you  about  ?  The  only  sharp 
ness  in  what  had  happened  was  that  with  Cissy's 
act  of  presence  Mrs.  Bradham  had  exercised  her 
great  function  of  social  appraiser  by  staring  and 
then,  as  under  conclusions  drawn  from  it,  giving 
way.  One  might  have  found  it  redeemingly  soft 
in  her  that  before  this  particular  suggestion  she 
could  melt,  or  that  in  other  words  Cissy  appeared 
the  single  fact  in  all  the  world  about  which  she 
had  anything  to  call  imagination.  She  imagined 
her,  she  imagined  her  now,  and  as  dealing  some 
how  with  their  massive  friend;  which  conscious 
ness,  on  the  latter's  part,  it  must  be  said,  played 
for  the  moment  through  everything  else. 

Not  indeed  that  there  wasn't  plenty  for  the 
girl  to  fill  the  fancy  with;  since  nothing  could 
have  been  purer  than  the  stream  that  she  poured 
into  Rosanna's  as  from  an  upturned  crystal  urn 
while  she  repeated  over,  holding  her  by  the  two 
hands,  gazing  at  her  in  admiration:  "I  can  see 
how  you  care  for  him — I  can  see,  I  can  see!" 
And  she  felt  indeed,  our  young  woman,  how  the 
cover  was  by  this  light  hand  whisked  off  her  secret 
— Cissy  made  it  somehow  a  secret  in  the  act  of 
laying  it  bare;  and  that  she  blushed  for  the  felt 
exposure  as  even  Gussy  had  failed  to  make  her. 
Seeing  which  her  companion  but  tilted  the  further 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

vessel  of  confidence.  "It's  too  funny,  it's  too 
wonderful  that  I  too  should  know  something. 
But  I  do,  and  I'll  tell  you  how — not  now,  for  I 
haven't  time,  but  as  soon  as  ever  I  can;  which 
will  make  you  see*  So  what  you  must  do  for  all 
you're  worth,"  said  Cissy,  "is  to  care  now  more 
than  ever.  You  must  keep  him  from  us,  because 
we're  not  good  enough  and  you  are\  you  must 
act  in  the  sense  of  what  you  feel,  and  must  feel 
exactly  as  you've  a  right  to — for,  as  I  say,  I  know, 
I  know!" 

It  was  impossible,  Rosanna  seemed  to  see,  that 
a  generous  young  thing  should  shine  out  in  more 
beauty;  so  that  what  in  the  world  might  one 
ever  keep  from  her  ?  Surpassingly  strange  the 
plea  thus  radiant  on  the  very  brow  of  the  danger ! 
"You  mean  you  know  Mr.  Fielder's  history  ? 
from  your  having  met  somebody—  -?" 

"Oh  that  of  course,  yes;  Gussy,  whom  I've 
told  of  my  having  met  Mr.  Northover,  will  have 
told  you.  That's  curious  and  charming,"  Cissy 
went  on,  "and  I  want  awfully  we  should  talk  of 
it.  But  it  isn't  what  I  mean  by  what  I  know— 
and  what  you  don't,  my  dear  thing !" 

Rosanna  couldn't  have  told  why,  but  she  had 
begun  to  tremble,  and  also  to  try  not  to  show  it. 
"What  I  don't  know — about  Gray  Fielder? 
Why,  of  course  there's  plenty!"  she  smiled. 

Cissy  still  held  her  hands;  but  Cissy  now  was 
grave.  "No,  there  isn't  plenty — save  so  far  as 

64 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

what  I  mean  is  enough.  And  I  haven't  told  it  to 
Gussy.  It's  too  good  for  her,"  the  girl  added. 
"It's  too  good  for  anyone  but  you." 

Rosanna  just  waited,  feeling  herself  perhaps 
grimace.  "What,  Cissy,  are  you  talking  about  ?" 

"About  what  I  heard  from  Mr.  Northover 
when  we  met  him,  when  we  saw  so  much  of  him, 
three  years  ago  at  Ragatz,  where  we  had  gone 
for  Mamma  and  where  we  went  through  the 
cure  with  him.  He  and  I  struck  up  a  friendship 
and  he  often  spoke  to  me  of  his  stepson — who 
wasn't  there  with  him,  was  at  that  time  off  some 
where  in  the  mountains  or  in  Italy,  I  forget,  but 
to  whom  I  could  see  he  was  devoted.  He  and  I 
hit  it  off  beautifully  together — he  seemed  to  me 
awfully  charming  and  to  like  to  tell  me  things. 
So  what  I  allude  to  is  something  he  said  to  me." 

"About  me?"  Rosanna  gasped. 

"Yes — I  see  now  it  was  about  you.  But  it's 
only  to-day  that  I've  guessed  that.  Otherwise, 
otherwise —  -!"  And  as  if  under  the  weight  of 
her  great  disclosure  Cissy  faltered. 

But  she  had  now  indeed  made  her  friend  de 
sire  it.  "You  mean  that  otherwise  you'd  have 
told  me  before?" 

"Yes  indeed — and  it's  such  a  miracle  I  didn't. 
It's  such  a  miracle,"  said  Cissy,  "that  the  person 
should  all  this  time  have  been  you — or  you  have 
been  the  person.  Of  course  I  had  no  idea  that 
all  this — everything  that  has  taken  place  now,  by 


THE   IVORY  TOWER 

what  I  understand — was  going  so  extraordinarily 
to  happen.  You  see  he  never  named  Mr.  Better- 
man,  or  in  fact,  I  think,"  the  girl  explained,  "told 
me  anything  about  him.  And  he  didn't  name, 
either,  Gray's  friend — so  that  in  spite  of  the  im 
pression  made  on  me  youVe  never  till  to-day 
been  identified." 

Immense,  as  she  went,  Rosanna  felt,  the  num 
ber  of  things  she  gave  her  thus  together  to  think 
about.  What  was  coming  she  clearly  needn't 
fear — might  indeed,  deep  within,  happily  hold 
her  breath  for;  but  the  very  interest  somehow 
made  her  rest  an  instant,  as  for  refinement  of 
suspense,  on  the  minor  surprises.  "The  impres 
sion  then  has  been  so  great  that  you  call  him 
'Gray'?" 

The  girl  at  this  ceased  holding  hands;  she 
folded  her  arms  back  together  across  her  slim 
young  person — the  frequent  habit  of  it  in  her 
was  of  the  prettiest  "quaint"  effect;  she  laughed 
as  if  submitting  to  some  just  correction  of  a  free 
dom.  "Oh,  but  my  dear,  he  did,  the  delightful 
man — and  isn't  it  borne  in  upon  me  that  you 
do?  Of  course  the  impression  was  great — and 
if  Mr.  Northover  and  I  had  met  younger  I  don't 
know,"  her  laugh  said,  "what  mightn't  have 
happened.  No,  I  never  shall  have  had  a  greater, 
a  more  intelligent  admirer!  As  it  was  we  re 
mained  true,  secretly  true,  for  fond  memory,  to 
the  end:  at  least  I  did,  though  ever  so  secretly 

66 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

— you  see  I  speak  of  it  only  now — and  I  want  to 
believe  so  in  his  impression.  But  how  I  torment 
you!"  she  suddenly  said  in  another  tone. 

Rosanna,  nursing  her  patience,  had  a  sad  slow 
headshake.  "I  don't  understand." 

"Of  course  you  don't — and  yet  it's  too  beau 
tiful.  It  was  about  Gray — once  when  we  talked 
of  him,  as  I've  told  you  we  repeatedly  did.  It 
was  that  he  never  would  look  at  anyone  else." 

Our  friend  could  but  appear  at  least  to  cast 
about.  "Anyone  else  than  whom  ?" 

"Why  than  you,"  Cissy  smiled.  "The  girl  he 
had  loved  in  boyhood.  The  American  girl  who, 
years  before,  in  Dresden,  had  done  for  him  some 
thing  he  could  never  forget." 

"And  what  had  she  done?"  stared   Rosanna. 

"Oh  he  didn't  tell  me  that\  But  if  you  don't 
take  great  care,  as  I  say,"  Cissy  went  on,  "per 
haps  he  may — I  mean  Mr.  Fielder  himself  may 
when  we  close  round  him  in  the  way  that,  in  your 
place,  as  I  assure  you,  I  would  certainly  do  every 
thing  to  prevent." 

Rosanna  looked  about  as  with  a  sudden  sense 
of  weakness,  the  effect  of  overstrain;  it  was  ab 
surd,  but  these  last  minutes  might  almost,  with 
their  queer  action,  and  as  to  the  ground  they 
covered,  have  been  as  many  formidable  days. 
A  fine  verandah  settee  again  close  at  hand  offered 
her  support,  and  she  dropped  upon  it,  as  for 
large  retrieval  of  menaced  ease,  with  a  need  she 

67 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

herself  alone  could  measure.  The  need  was  to 
recover  some  sense  of  perspective,  to  be  able  to 
place  her  young  friend's  somehow  portentous 
assault  off  in  such  conditions,  if  only  of  mere 
space  and  time,  as  would  make  for  some  greater 
convenience  of  relation  with  it.  It  did  at  once 
help  her — and  really  even  for  the  tone  in  which 
she  smiled  across:  "So  you're  sure?" 

Cissy  hovered,  shining,  shifting,  yet  accepting 
the  perspective  as  it  were — when  in  the  world 
had  she  to  fear  anyl — and  positively  painted 
1  there  in  bright  contradiction,  her  very  grace 
again,  after  the  odd  fashion  in  which  it  sometimes 
worked,  seeming  to  deny  her  sincerity,  and  her 
very  candour  seeming  to  deny  her  gravity.  "Sure 
of  what  ?  Sure  I'm  right  about  you  ?" 

Rosanna  took  a  minute  to  say — so  many  things 
worked  in  her;  yet  when  one  of  these  came  up 
permost,  pushing  certain  of  the  others  back,  she 
found  for  putting  it  forward  a  tone  grateful  to 
her  own  ear.  This  tone  represented  on  her  part 
too  a  substitute  for  sincerity,  but  that  was  ex 
actly  what  she  wanted.  "I  don't  care  a  fig  for 
any  anecdote  about  myself — which  moreover  it 
would  be  very  difficult  for  you  to  have  right. 
What  I  ask  you  if  you're  certain  of  is  your  being 
really  not  fit  for  him.  Are  you  absolutely,"  said 
Miss  Gaw,  "as  bad  as  that?" 

The  girl,  placed  before  her,  looked  at  her  now, 
with  raised  hands  folded  together,  as  if  she  had 
been  some  seated  idol,  a  great  Buddha  perched 

68 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

up  on  a  shrine.     "Oh  Rosanna,  Rosanna — 
she  admiringly,  piously  breathed. 

But  it  was  not  such  treatment  that  could  keep 
Miss  Gaw  from  completing  her  chosen  sense.  "I 
should  be  extremely  sorry — so  far  as  I  claim  any 
influence  on  him — to  interfere  against  his  getting 
over  here  whatever  impressions  he  may;  inter 
fere  by  his  taking  you  for  more  important,  in 
any  way,  than  seems  really  called  for." 

"Taking  me?"  Cissy  smiled. 

"Taking  any  of  you — the  people,  in  general 
and  in  particular,  who  haunt  this  house.  We 
mustn't  be  afraid  for  him  of  his  having  the  in 
terest,  or  even  the  mere  amusement,  of  learning 
all  that's  to  be  learnt  about  us." 

"Oh  Rosanna,  Rosanna" — the  girl  kept  it  up 
-"how  you  adore  him;    and  how  you  make  me 
therefore,  wretch  that  I  am,  fiendishly  want  to 
see  him!" 

But  it  might  quite  have  glanced  now  from 
our  friend's  idol  surface.  "You're  the  best  of  us, 
no  doubt — very  much;  and  I  immensely  hope 
you'll  like  him,  since  you've  been  so  extraordi 
narily  prepared.  It's  to  be  supposed  too  that 
he'll  have  some  sense  of  his  own." 

Cissy  continued  rapt.  "Oh  but  you're  deep 
—deep  deep  deep !" 

It  came  out  as  another  presence  again,  that  of 
Davey  Bradham,  who  had  the  air  of  rather  rest 
lessly  looking  for  her,  emerged  from  one  of  the 
long  windows  of  the  house,  just  at  hand,  to  meet 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

Rosanna's  eyes.  She  found  herself  glad  to  have 
him  back,  as  if  further  to  inform  him.  Wasn't  it 
after  all  rather  he  that  was  the  best  of  them  and 
by  no  means  Cissy  ?  Her  face  might  at  any 
rate  have  conveyed  as  much  while  she  reported 
of  that  young  lady.  "She  thinks  me  so 
deep." 

It  made  the  girl,  who  had  not  seen  him,  turn 
round;  but  with  an  immediate  equal  confidence. 
"And  she  thinks  mey  Davey,  so  good  !" 

Davey 's  eyes  were  only  on  Cissy,  but  Rosanna 
seemed  to  feel  them  on  herself.  "How  you  must 
have  got  mixed!"  he  exclaimed.  "But  your 
father  has  come  for  you/'  he  then  said  to  Ro 
sanna,  who  had  got  up. 

"Father  has  walked  it?" — she  was  amazed. 

"No,  he's  there  in  a  hack  to  take  you  home — 
and  too  excited  to  come  in." 

Rosanna's  surprise  but  grew.  "Has  anything 
happened—  -?" 

"Wonders — I  asked  them.  Mr.  Betterman's 
sitting  right  up." 

"Really  improving ?"  Then  her  mystifi 
cation  spread.  "  'Them,'  you  say?" 

"Why  his  nurse,  as  I  at  least  suppose  her," 
said  Davey,  "is  with  him — apparently  to  give 
you  the  expert  opinion." 

"Of  the  fiend's  recuperating?"  Cissy  cried  with 
a  wail.  And  then  before  her  friend's  bewilder 
ment,  "How  dreadfully  horrid  !"  she  added. 

7° 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

"Whose  nurse,  please?"  Rosanna  asked  of 
Davey. 

"Why,  hasn't  he  got  a  nurse?"  Davey  him 
self,  as  always,  but  desired  lucidity.  "She's 
doing  her  duty  by  him  all  the  same!" 

On  which  Cissy's  young  wit  at  once  appre 
hended.  "It's  one  of  Mr.  Betterman's  taking  a 
joy-ride  in  honour  of  his  recovery !  Did  you 
ever  hear  anything  so  cool?" 

She  had  appealed  to  her  friends  alike,  but 
Rosanna,  under  the  force  of  her  suggestion,  was 
already  in  advance.  "Then  father  himself  must 
be  ill!"  Miss  Gaw  had  declared,  moving  rapidly 
to  the  quarter  in  which  he  so  incongruously 
waited  and  leaving  Davey  to  point  a  rapid  moral 
for  Cissy's  benefit  while  this  couple  followed. 

"If  he  is  so  upset  that  he  hasn't  been  trusted 
alone  I'll  be  hanged  if  I  don't  just  see  it!" 

But  the  marvel  was  the  way  in  which  after  an 
instant  Cissy  saw  it  too.  "You  mean  because 
he  can't  stand  Mr.  Betterman's  perhaps  not 
dying?" 

"Yes,  dear  ingenuous  child — he  has  wanted  so 
to  see  him  out." 

"Well  then,  isn't  it  what  we're  all  wanting?" 

"Most  undoubtedly,  pure  pearl  of  penetra 
tion!"  Davey  returned  as  they  went.  "His 
pick-up  will  be  a  sell,"  he  ruefully  added;  "even 
though  it  mayn't  quite  kill  anyone  of  us  but 
Mr.  Gaw!" 

71 


BOOK  SECOND 
I 

GRAHAM'S  view  of  his  case  and  of  all  his  proprie 
ties,  from  the  moment  of  his  arrival,  was  that  he 
should  hold  himself  without  reserve  at  his  uncle's 
immediate  disposition,  and  even  such  talk  as 
seemed  indicated,  during  the  forenoon,  with 
Doctor  Hatch  and  Miss  Mumby,  the  nurse  then 
in  charge,  did  little  to  lighten  for  him  the  im 
mense  prescription  of  delicacy.  What  he  learnt 
was  far  from  disconcerting;  the  patient,  aware 
of  his  presence,  had  shown  for  soothed,  not  for 
agitated;  the  drop  of  the  tension  of  waiting  had 
had  the  benign  effect;  he  had  repeated  over  to 
his  attendant  that  now  "the  boy"  was  there, 
all  would  be  for  the  best,  and  had  asked  also 
with  soft  iteration  if  he  were  having  everything 
he  wanted.  The  happy  assurance  of  this  right 
turn  of  their  affair,  so  far  as  they  had  got,  he  was 
now  quietly  to  enjoy:  he  was  to  rest  two  or  three 
hours,  and  if  possible  to  sleep,  while  Graham,  on 
his  side,  sought  a  like  remedy — after  the  full  in 
dulgence  in  which  their  meeting  would  take 
place.  The  excellent  fact  for  "the  boy,"  who 
was  two-and-thirty  years  of  age  and  who  now 

72 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

quite  felt  as  if  during  the  last  few  weeks  he  had 
lived  through  a  dozen  more,  was  thus  that  he 
was  doing  his  uncle  good  and  that  somehow,  to 
complete  that  harmony,  he  might  feel  the  opera 
tion  of  an  equal  virtue.  At  his  invitation,  at  his 
decision,  the  idea  of  some  such  wondrous  matter 
as  this  had  of  course  presided — for  waiting  and 
obliging  good,  which  one  was  simply  to  open  one's 
heart  or  one's  hand  to,  had  struck  him  ever  as 
so  little  of  the  common  stuff  of  life  that  now, 
at  closer  range,  it  could  but  figure  as  still  more 
prodigious.  At  the  same  time  there  was  nothing 
he  dreaded,  by  his  very  nature,  more  than  a  fond 
fatuity,  and  he  had  imposed  on  himself  from  the 
first  to  proceed  at  every  step  as  if  without  con 
sideration  he  might  well  be  made  an  ass  of.  It 
'  was  true  that  even  such  a  danger  as  this  presented 
its  interest — the  process  to  which  he  should  yield 
would  be  without  precedent  for  him,  and  his 
imagination,  thank  heaven,  had  curiosity  in  a 
large  measure  for  its  principle;  he  wouldn't  rush 
into  peril,  however,  and  flattered  himself  that 
after  all  he  should  not  recognise  its  symptoms 
too  late. 

What  he  said  to  himself  just  now  on  the  spot 
was,  at  any  rate,  that  he  should  probably  have 
been  more  excited  if  he  hadn't  been  so  amused. 
To  be  amused  to  a  high  pitch  while  his  nearest 
kinsman,  apparently  nursing,  as  he  had  been  told, 
a  benevolence,  lay  dying  a  few  rooms  off — let 

73 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

this  impute  levity  to  our  young  man  only  till 
we  understand  that  his  liability  to  recreation 
represented  in  him  a  function  serious  indeed. 
Everything  played  before  him,  everything  his 
senses  embraced;  and  since  his  landing  in  New 
York  on  the  morning  before  this  the  play  had 
been  of  a  delightful  violence.  No  slightest  aspect 
or  briefest  moment  of  it  but  had  held  and,  so  to 
say,  rewarded  him:  if  he  had  come  back  at  last 
for  impressions,  for  emotions,  for  the  sake  of  the 
rush  upon  him  of  the  characteristic,  these  things 
he  was  getting  in  a  measure  beyond  his  dream. 
It  was  still  beyond  his  dream  that  what  every 
thing  merely  seen  from  the  window  of  his  room 
meant  to  him  during  these  first  hours  should 
move  him  first  to  a  smile  of  such  ecstasy,  and 
then  to  such  an  inward  consumption  of  his  smile, 
as  might  have  made  of  happiness  a  substance 
you  could  sweetly  put  under  your  tongue.  ;  He 
recognised — that  was  the  secret,  recognised  wher 
ever  he  looked — and  knew  that  when,  from  far 
back,  during  his  stretch  of  unbroken  absence,  he 
had  still  felt,  and  liked  to  feel,  what  air  had  orig 
inally  breathed  upon  him,  these  piercing  intensi 
ties  of  salience  had  really  peopled  the  vision. 
He  had  much  less  remembered  the  actual  than 
forecast  the  inevitable,  and  the  huge  involved 
necessity  of  its  all  showing  as  he  found  it  seemed 
fairly  to  shout  in  his  ear.  He  had  brought  with 
him  a  fine  intention,  one  of  the  finest  of  which 

74 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

he  was  capable,  and  wasn't  it,  he  put  to  himself, 
already  working  ?  Wasn't  he  gathering  in  a  per 
fect  bloom  of  freshness  the  fruit  of  his  design 
rather  to  welcome  the  impression  to  extravagance, 
if  need  be,  than  to  undervalue  it  by  the  breadth 
of  a  hair  ?  Inexpert  he  couldn't  help  being,  but 
too  estranged  to  melt  again  at  whatever  touch 
might  make  him,  that  he'd  be  hanged  if  he  couldn't 
help,  since  what  was  the  great  thing  again  but 
to  hold  up  one's  face  to  any drizzle  of  light  ? 

There  it  was,  the  light,  in  a  mist  of  silver,  even 
as  he  took  in  the  testimony  of  his  cool  bedimmed 
room,  where  the  air  was  toned  by  the  closing  of 
the  great  green  shutters.  It  was  ample  and  ele 
gant,  of  an  American  elegance,  which  was  so  un 
like  any  other,  and  so  still  more  unlike  any  lapse 
of  it,  ever  met  by  him,  that  some  of  its  material 
terms  and  items  held  him  as  in  rapt  contempla 
tion;  what  he  had  wanted,  even  to  intensity, 
being  that  things  should  prove  different,  should 
positively  glare  with  opposition — there  would  be 
no  fun  at  all  were  they  only  imperfectly  like,  as 
that  wouldn't  in  the  least  mean  character.  Their 
character  might  be  if  it  would  in  their  consistently 
having  none — than  which  deficiency  nothing  was 
more  possible;  but  he  should  have  to  decline  to 
be  charmed  by  unsuccessful  attempts  at  sorts  of 
expression  he  had  elsewhere  known  more  or  less 
happily  achieved.  This  particular  disappoint 
ment  indeed  he  was  clearly  not  in  for,  since  what 

75 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

could  at  once  be  more  interesting  than  thus  to 
note  that  the  range  and  scale  kept  all  their  parts 
together,  that  each  object  or  effect  disowned  con 
nections,  as  he  at  least  had  all  his  life  felt  con 
nections,  and  that  his  cherished  hope  of  the  fresh 
start  and  the  broken  link  would  have  its  measure 
filled  to  the  brim.  There  was  an  American  way 
for  a  room  to  be  a  room,  a  table  a  table,  a  chair  a 

1  chair  and  a  book  a  book — let  alone  a  picture  on 
a  wall  a  picture,  and  a  cold  gush  of  water  in  a 
bath  of  a  hot  morning  a  promise  of  purification; 
and  of  this  license  all  about  him,  in  fine,  he  be 
held  the  refreshing  riot.' 

It  cast  on  him  for  the  time  a  spell;  he  moved 
about  with  soft  steps  and  long  pauses,  staring 
out  between  the  slats  of  the  shutters,  which  he 
gently  worked  by  their  attachment,  and  then 
again  living,  with  a  subtlety  of  sense  that  it  was 
a  pleasure  to  exercise,  into  the  conditions  rep 
resented  by  whatever  more  nearly  pressed.  It 
was  not  only  that  the  process  of  assimilation,  un 
like  any  other  he  had  yet  been  engaged  in,  might 
stop  short,  to  disaster,  if  he  so  much  as  breathed 
too  hard;  but  that  if  he  made  the  sufficient  sur 
render  he  might  absolutely  himself  be  assimilated 
— and  that  was  truly  an  experience  he  couldn't 

,  but  want  to  have.  The  great  thing  he  held  on 
to  withal  was  a  decent  delicacy,  a  dread  of  ap- 

I  pearing  even  to  himself  to  take  big  things  for 
granted.  This  of  itself  was  restrictive  as  to  free- 

76 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

doms — it  stayed  familiarities,  it  kept  uncer 
tainty  cool;  for  after  all  what  had  his  uncle  done 
but  cause  to  be  conveyed  to  him  across  the  sea 
the  bare  wish  that  he  should  come?  He  had 
straightway  come  in  consequence,  but  on  no 
explanation  and  for  no  signified  reward;  he  had 
come  simply  to  avoid  a  possible  ugliness  in  his 
not  coming.  Generally  addicted  to  such  avoid 
ances,  to  which  it  indeed  seemed  to  him  that  the 
quest  of  beauty  was  too  often  reduced,  he  had 
found  his  reason  sufficient  until  the  present  hour, 
when  it  was  as  if  all  reasons,  all  of  his  own  at 
least,  had  suddenly  abandoned  him,  to  the  effect 
of  his  being  surrounded  only  with  those  of  others, 
of  which  he  was  up  to  now  ignorant,  but  which 
somehow  hung  about  the  large  still  place,  some 
how  stiffened  the  vague  summer  Sunday  and 
twinkled  in  the  universal  cleanness,  a  real  reve 
lation  to  him  of  that  possible  immunity  in  things. 
He  might  have  been  sent  for  merely  to  be  blown 
up  for  the  relief  of  the  old  man's  mind  on  the 
perversity  and  futility  of  his  past.  There  was 
before  him  at  all  events  no  gage  of  anything  else, 
no  intimation  other  than  his  having  been,  ma 
terially  speaking,  preceded  by  preparations,  to 
make  him  throw  himself  on  a  survey  of  prospects. 
What  was  before  him  at  the  least  was  a  "big" 
experience — even  to  have  come  but  to  be  cursed 
and  dismissed  would  really  be  a  bigger  thing  than  i 
yet  had  befallen  him.  Not  the  form  but  the  fact 

77 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

of  the  experience  accordingly  mattered — so  that 
wasn't  it  there  to  a  fine  intensity  by  his  standing 
ever  and  anon  at  the  closed  door  of  his  room  and 
feeling  that  with  his  ear  intent  enough  he  could 
catch  the  pressure  on  the  other  side  ? 
^  The  pressure  was  at  last  unmistakeable,  we 
note,  in  the  form  of  Miss  Mumby,  who,  having 
gently  tapped,  appeared  there  both  to  remark  to 
him  that  he  must  surely  at  last  want  his  luncheon 
and  to  affect  him  afresh  and  in  the  supreme  de 
gree  as  a  vessel  of  the  American  want  of  corre 
spondence.  Miss  Mumby  was  ample,  genial, 
familiar  and  more  radiantly  clean  than  he  had 
ever  known  any  vessel,  to  whatever  purpose 
destined;  also  the  number  of  things  she  took  for 
granted — if  it  was  a  question  of  that;  or  perhaps 
rather  the  number  of  things  of  which  she  didn't 
doubt  and  was  incapable  of  doubting,  surrounded 
her  together  with  a  kind  of  dazzling  aura,  a  special 
radiance  of  disconnection.  She  wore  a  beautiful 
white  dress,  and  he  scarce  knew  what  apparatus 
of  spotless  apron  and  cuffs  and  floating  streamers 
to  match;  yet  she  could  only  again  report  to  him 
of  the  impression  that  had  most  jumped  at  him 
from  the  moment  of  his  arrival.  He  saw  in  a 
moment  that  any  difficulty  on  his  part  of  begin 
ning  with  her  at  some  point  in  social  space,  so 
to  say,  at  which  he  had  never  begun  before  with 
any  such  person,  would  count  for  nothing  in  face 
of  her  own  perfect  power  to  begin.  The  faculty 

78 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

of  beginning  would  be  in  truth  Miss  Mumby's 
very  genius,  and  in  the  moment  of  his  appre 
hension  of  this  he  felt  too — he  had  in  fact  already 
felt  it  at  their  first  meeting — how  little  his  pale 
old  postulates  as  to  persons  being  "such"  might 
henceforth  claim  to  serve  him.  What  person 
met  by  him  during  his  thirty  hours  in  American 
air  was  "such"  again  as  any  other  partaker  of 
contact  had  appeared  or  proved,  no  matter  where, 
before  his  entering  it  ?  What  person  had  not  at 
once  so  struck  him  in  the  light  of  violent  repudia 
tion  of  type,  as  he  might  save  for  his  sensibility 
have  imputed  type,  that  nothing  else  in  the  case 
seemed  predicable  ?  He  might  have  seen  Miss 
Mumby,  he  was  presently  to  recognise,  in  the 
light  of  a  youngish  mother  perhaps,  a  sister,  a 
cousin,  a  friend,  even  a  possible  bride,  for  these 
were  aspects  independent  of  type  and  bound 
lessly  free  of  range;  but  a  "trained  nurse"  was 
a  trained  nurse,  and  that  was  a  category  of  the 
most  evolved — in  spite  of  which  what  category 
in  all  the  world  could  have  lifted  its  head  in  Miss 
Mumby's  aura  ? 

Still,  she  might  have  been  a  pleasant  cousin, 
a  first  cousin,  the  very  first  a  man  had  ever  had 
and  not  in  any  degree  "removed,"  while  she 
thus  proclaimed  the  cheerful  ease  of  everything 
and  everyone,  her  own  above  all,  and  made  him 
yield  on  the  spot  to  her  lightest  intimation.  He 
couldn't  possibly  have  held  off  from  her  in  any 

79 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

way,  and  if  this  was  in  part  because  he  always 
collapsed  at  a  touch  before  nurses,  it  was  at  the 
same  time  not  at  all  the  nurse  in  her  that  now  so 
affected  him,  but  the  incalculable  other  force, 
of  which  he  had  had  no  experience  and  which 
was  apparently  that  of  the  familiar  in  tone  and 
manner.  He  had  known,  of  a  truth,  familiarity 
greater — much  greater,  but  only  with  greater  oc 
casions  and  supports  for  it;  whereas  on  Miss 
Mumby's  part  it  seemed  independent  of  any  or 
of  every  motive.  He  could  scarce  have  said  in 
fine,  as  he  followed  her  to  their  repast,  at  which 
he  foresaw  in  an  instant  that  they  were  both  to 
sit  down,  whether  it  more  alarmed  or  just  more 
coolingly  enveloped  him;  his  slight  first  bewilder 
ment  at  any  rate  had  dropped — he  had  already 
forgotten  the  moment  wasted  two  or  three  hours 
before  in  wondering,  with  his  sense  of  having 
known  Nurses  who  gloried  in  their  title,  how  his 
dear  second  father,  for  instance,  would  in  his 
final  extremity  have  liked  the  ministrations  of  a 
Miss.  By  those  he  himself  presently  enjoyed  in 
such  different  conditions,  that  is  from  across  the 
table,  bare  and  polished  and  ever  so  delicately 
charged,  of  the  big  dusky,  yet  just  a  little  breezy 
dining-room,  by  those  in  short  under  which  every 
association  he  had  ever  had  with  anything  crashed 
down  to  pile  itself  as  so  much  more  tinklingly 
shivered  glass  at  Miss  Mumby's  feet,  that  sort, 
of  question  was  left  far  behind — and  doubtless 

80 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

would  have  been  so  even  if  the  appeal  of  the 
particular  refection  served  to  them  had  alone 
had  the  case  in  hand.  "I'm  going  to  make  you 
like  our  food,  so  you  might  as  well  begin  at  once," 
his  companion  had  announced;  and  he  felt  it  on 
the  spot  as  scarce  less  than  delicious  that  this 
element  too  should  play,  and  with  such  fineness, 
into  that  harmony  of  the  amusingly  exotic  which 
was,  under  his  benediction,  working  its  will  on 
him.  "Oh  yes,"  she  rejoiced  in  answer  to  his 
exhibition  of  the  degree  in  which  what  was  be 
fore  him  did  stir  again  to  sweetness  a  chord  of 
memory,  "oh  yes,  food's  a  great  tie,  it's  like 
language — you  can  always  understand  your  own, 
whereas  in  Europe  I  had  to  learn  about  six 
others." 

Miss  Mumby  had  been  to  Europe,  and  he  saw 
soon  enough  how  there  was  nowhere  one  could 
say  she  hadn't  gone  and  nothing  one  could  say 
she  hadn't  done — one's  perception  could  bear 
only  on  what  she  hadn't  become;  so  that,  as  he 
thus  perceived,  though  she  might  have  affected 
Europe  even  as  she  was  now  affecting  him,  she 
was  a  pure  negation  of  its  having  affected  herself, 
unless  perhaps  by  adding  to  her  power  to  make 
him  feel  how  little  he  could  impose  on  her.  She 
knew  all  about  his  references  while  he  only  missed 
hers,  and  that  gave  her  a  tremendous  advantage 
— or  would  have  done  so  hadn't  she  been  too 
much  his  cousin  to  take  it.  He  at  any  rate  recog- 

81 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

nised  in  a  moment  that  the  so  many  things  she 
had  had  to  learn  to  understand  over  there  were 
not  forms  of  speech  but  alimentary  systems — as 
to  which  view  he  quite  agreed  with  her  that  the 
element  of  the  native  was  equally  rooted  in  both 
supports  of  life.  This  gave  her  of  course  her  op 
portunity  of  remarking  that  she  had  indeed  made 
for  the  assimilation  of  "his"  cookery — which 
ever  of  the  varieties  his  had  most  been — scarce 
less  an  effort  than  she  must  confess  now  to  making 
for  that  of  his  terms  of  utterance;  where  she  had 
at  once  again  the  triumph  that  he  was  nowhere, 
by  his  own  reasoning,  if  he  pretended  to  an  affinity 
with  the  nice  things  they  were  now  eating  and 
yet  stood  off  from  the  other  ground.  "Oh  I 
understand  you,  which  appears  to  be  so  much 
more  than  you  do  me!"  he  laughed;  "but  am 
I  really  committed  to  everything  because  I'm 
committed,  in  the  degree  you  see  me,  oh  yes,  to 
waffles  and  maple  syrup,  followed,  and  on  such 
a  scale,  by  melons  and  ice-cream  ?  You  see  in 
the  one  case  I  have  but  to  take  in,  and  in  the 
other  have  to  give  out:  so  can't  I  have,  in  a  quiet 
way  the  American  palate  without  emitting  the 
American  sounds?"  Thus  was  he  on  the 
straightest  flattest  level  with  Miss  Mumby — it 
stretched,  to  his  imagination,  without  a  break, 
a  rise  or  a  fall,  a  perte  de  vue\  and  thus  was  it 
already  attested  that  the  Miss  Mumbys  (for  it 
was  evident  there  would  be  thousands  of  them) 

82 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

were  in  society,  or  were,  at  any  rate,  not  out  of 
it,  society  thereby  becoming  clearly  colossal. 
What  was  it,  moreover,  but  the  best  society — 
as  who  should  say  anywhere — when  his  com 
panion  made  the  bright  point  that  if  anything 
had  to  do  with  sounds  the  palate  did  ?  returning 
with  it  also  to  the  one  already  made,  her  due 
warning  that  she  wasn't  going  to  have  him  not 
like  everything.  "But  I  do,  I  do,  I  do,"  he  de 
clared,  with  his  mouth  full  of  a  seasoned  and 
sweetened,  a  soft,  substantial  coldness  and  rich 
ness  that  were  at  once  the  revelation  of  a  world 
and  the  consecration  of  a  fate;  "I  revel  in  every 
thing,  I  already  wallow,  behold:  I  move  as  in  a 
dream,  I  assure  you,  and  I  only  fear  to  wake  up." 
"Well,  I  don't  know  as  I  want  you  to  wallow, 
and  I  certainly  don't  want  you  to  fear — though 
you'll  wake  up  soon  enough,  I  guess,"  his  enter 
tainer  continued,  "whatever  you  do.  You'll 
wake  up  to  some  of  our  realities,  and — well,  we 
won't  want  anything  better  for  you:  will  we, 
Doctor?"  Miss  Mumby  freely  proceeded  on  their 
being  joined  for  a  moment  by  the  friendly  phy 
sician  who  had  greeted  our  young  man,  on  his 
uncle's  behalf,  at  his  hour  of  arrival,  and  who, 
having  been  again  for  awhile  with  their  interest 
ing  host,  had  left  the  second  nurse  in  charge  and 
was  about  to  be  off  to  other  cares.  "I'm  saying 
to  Mr.  Fielder  that  he's  got  to  wake  up  to  some 
pretty  big  things,"  she  explained  to  Doctor  Hatch, 

83 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

whom  it  struck  Gray  she  addressed  rather  as  he 
had  heard  doctors  address  nurses  than  nurses 
doctors;  a  fact  contributing  offhand  to  his  aware 
ness,  already  definite,  that  everyone  addressed 
everyone  as  he  had  nowhere  yet  heard  the  ad 
dress  perpetrated,  and  that  so,  evidently,  there 
were  questions  connected  with  it  that  must  yet 
'  wait  over.  It  was  pertinently  to  be  felt  further 
more  that  Doctor  Hatch's  own  freedom,  which 
also  had  quite  its  own  rare  freshness  of  note, 
shared  in  the  general  property  of  the  whole  ap 
peal  to  him,  the  appeal  of  the  very  form  of  the 
great  sideboard,  the  very  "school,"  though  yet 
unrecognised  by  him,  of  the  pictures  hung  about, 
the  very  look  and  dress,  the  apparently  odd 
identity,  of  the  selected  and  arrayed  volumes  in 
a  bookcase  charged  with  ornament  and  occupying 
the  place  of  highest  dignity  in  the  room,  to  take 
his  situation  for  guaranteed  as  it  was  surely  not 
common  for  earthly  situations  to  be.  This  he 
could  feel,  however,  without  knowing,  to  any 
great  purpose,  what  it  really  meant;  and  he  was 
afterwards  even  scarce  to  know  what  had  further 
taken  place,  under  Doctor  Hatch's  blessing,  be 
fore  he  passed  out  of  the  house  to  the  verandah 
and  the  grounds,  as  their  limitations  of  reach 
didn't  prevent  their  being  called,  and  gave  him 
self  up  to  inquiries  now  permittedly  direct. 

Doctor  Hatch's  message  or  momentary  act  of 
quaint  bright  presence  came  to  him  thus,  on  the 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

verandah,  while  shining  expanses  opened,  as  an 
invitation  to  some  extraordinary  confidence,  some 
flight  of  optimism  without  a  precedent,  as  a  posi 
tive  hint  in  fine  that  it  depended  on  himself  alone 
to  step  straight  into  the  chariot  of  the  sun,  which 
on  his  mere  nod  would  conveniently  descend 
there  to  the  edge  of  the  piazza,  and  whirl  away 
for  increase  of  acquaintance  with  the  time,  as  it 
was  obviously  going  to  be,  of  his  life.  This  was 
but  his  reading  indeed  of  the  funny  terms  in 
which  the  delightful  man  put  it  to  him  that  he 
seemed  by  his  happy  advent  to  have  brought  on 
for  his  uncle  a  prospect,  a  rise  of  pitch,  not  dis 
similar  from  that  sort  of  vision;  by  so  high  a  tide 
of  ease  had  the  sick  room  above  been  flooded, 
and  such  a  lot  of  good  would  clearly  await  the 
patient  from  seeing  him  after  a  little  and  at  the 
perfect  proper  moment.  It  was  to  be  that  of 
Mr.  Betterman's  competent  choice:  he  lay  there 
as  just  for  the  foretaste  of  it,  which  was  wholly 
tranquillising,  and  could  be  trusted — what  else 
did  doctor  and  nurse  engage  for  ? — to  know  the 
psychological  hour  on  its  striking  and  then,  to 
complete  felicity,  have  his  visitor  introduced. 
His  present  mere  assurance  of  the  visitor  was  in 
short  so  agreeable  to  him,  and  by  the  same 
token  to  Doctor  Hatch  himself — which  was  above 
all  what  the  latter  had  conveyed — that  the  im 
plication  of  the  agreeable  to  Graham  in  return 
might  fairly  have  been  some  imponderable  yet 

8s 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

ever  so  sensible  tissue,  voluminous  interwoven 
gold  and  silver,  flung  as  a  mantle  over  his 
shoulders  while  he  went.  Gray  had  never  felt 
around  him  any  like  envelope  whatever;  so  that 
on  his  looking  forth  at  all  the  candid  clearness— 
which  struck  him  too,  ever  so  amusingly,  as  even 
more  candid  when  occasionally  and  aggressively, 
that  is  residentially,  obstructed  than  when  not— 
what  he  inwardly  and  fantastically  compared  it 
to  was  some  presented  quarto  page,  vast  and 
fair,  ever  so  distinctly  printed  and  ever  so  un 
expectedly  vignetted,  of  a  volume  of  which  the 
leaves  would  be  turned  for  him  one  by  one  and 
with  no  more  trouble  on  his  own  part  than  when 
a  friendly  service  beside  him  at  the  piano,  where 
he  so  often  sat,  relieved  him,  from  sheet  to  sheet, 
of  touching  his  score. 

Wasn't  he  thus  now  again  "playing,"  as  it  had 
been  a  lifelong  resource  to  him  to  play  in  that 
other  posture? — a  question  promoted  by  the 
way  the  composition  suddenly  broke  into  the 
vividest  illustrational  figure,  that  of  a  little  man 
encountered  on  one  of  his  turns  of  the  verandah 
and  who,  affecting  him  at  first  as  a  small  waiting 
and  watching,  an  almost  crouching  gnome,  the 
neat  domestic  goblin  of  some  old  Germanic,  some 
harmonised,  familiarised  legend,  sat  and  stared 
at  him  from  the  depths  of  an  arrested  rocking- 
chair  after  a  fashion  nothing  up  to  then  had  led 
him  to  preconceive.  This  was  a  different  note 

86 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

from  any  yet,  a  queer,  sharp,  hard  particle  in 
all  the  softness;  and  it  was  sensible  too,  oddly 
enough,  that  the  small  force  of  their  concussion 
but  grew  with  its  coming  over  him  the  next  mo 
ment  that  he  simply  had  before  him  Rosanna 
Gaw's  prodigious  parent.  Of  course  it  was  Mr. 
Gaw,  whom  he  had  never  seen,  and  of  whom 
Rosanna  in  the  old  time  had  so  little  talked;  her 
mother  alone  had  talked  of  him  in  those  days, 
and  to  his  own  mother  only — with  whom  Gray 
had  indeed  himself  afterwards  talked  not  a  little; 
but  the  intensity  of  the  certitude  came  not  so 
much  by  any  plain  as  by  quite  the  most  round 
about  presumption,  the  fact  of  his  always  having 
felt  that  she  required  some  strange  accounting 
for,  and  that  here  was  the  requirement  met  by 
just  the  ripest  revelation.  She  had  been  in 
volved  in  something,  produced  by  something, 
intimately  pressing  upon  her  and  yet  as  different 
as  possible  from  herself;  and  here  was  the  con 
centrated  difference — which  showed  him  too,  with 
each  lapsing  second,  its  quality  of  pressure.  Abel 
Gaw  struck  him  in  this  light  as  very  finely 
blanched,  as  somehow  squeezed  together  by  the 
operation  of  an  inward  energy  or  necessity,  and 
as  animated  at  the  same  time  by  the  conviction 
that,  should  he  sit  there  long  enough  and  still 
enough,  the  young  man  from  Europe,  known  to 
be  on  the  premises,  might  finally  reward  his 
curiosity.  Mr.  Gaw  was  curiosity  embodied— 

87 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

Gray  was  by  the  end  of  the  minute  entirely  as 
sured  of  that;  it  in  fact  quite  seemed  to  him  that 
he  had  never  yet  in  all  his  life  caught  the  prying 
passion  so  shamelessly  in  the  act.  Shamelessly, 
he  was  afterwards  to  remember  having  explained 
to  himself,  because  his  sense  of  the  reach  of  the 
sharp  eyes  in  the  small  white  face,  and  of  their 
not  giving  way  for  a  moment  before  his  own, 
suggested  to  him,  even  if  he  could  scarce  have 
said  why  to  that  extent,  the  act  of  listening  at 
the  door,  at  the  very  keyhole,  of  a  room,  com 
bined  with  the  attempt  to  make  it  good  under 
sudden  detection. 

So  it  was,  at  any  rate,  that  our  speculative 
friend,  the  impression  of  the  next  turn  of  the 
case  aiding,  figured  the  extension,  without  forms, 
without  the  shade  of  a  form,  of  their  unmitigated 
mutual  glare.  The  initiation  of  this  exchange  by 
the  little  old  gentleman  in  the  chair,  who  gave 
for  so  long  no  sign  of  moving  or  speaking,  couldn't 
but  practically  determine  in  Graham's  own  face 
some  resistance  to  the  purpose  exhibited  and  for 
which  it  was  clear  no  apology  impended.  By  the 
time  he  had  recognised  that  his  presence  was  in 
question  for  Mr.  Gaw  with  such  an  intensity  as 
it  had  never  otherwise,  he  felt,  had  the  benefit 
of,  however  briefly,  save  under  some  offered  gage 
or  bribe,  he  had  also  made  out  that  no  "form" 
would  survive  for  twenty  seconds  in  any  close 
relation  with  the  personage,  and  that  if  ever  he 

88 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

had  himself  known  curiosity  as  to  what  might 
happen  when  manners  were  consistently  enough 
ignored  it  was  a  point  on  which  he  should  at  once 
be  enlightened.  His  fellow-visitor,  of  whose  be 
ing  there  Doctor  Hatch  and  Miss  Mumby  were 
presumably  unaware,  continued  to  ignore  every 
thing  but  the  opportunity  he  enjoyed  and  the 
certainty  that  Graham  would  contribute  to  it— 
which  certainty  made  in  fact  his  profit.  The 
profit,  that  is,  couldn't  possibly  fail  unless  Gray 
should  turn  his  back  and  walk  off;  which  was 
of  course  possible,  but  would  then  saddle  Gray 
himself  with  the  repudiation  of  forms :  so  that — 
yes,  infallibly — in  proportion  as  the  young  man 
had  to  be  commonly  civil  would  Mr.  Gaw's  per 
haps  unholy  satisfaction  of  it  be  able  to  prevail. 
The  young  man  had  taken  it  home  that  he  couldn't 
simply  stare  long  enough  for  successful  defence 
by  the  time  that,  presently  moving  nearer,  he 
uttered  his  adversary's  name  with  no  intimation 
of  a  doubt.  Mr.  Gaw  failed,  Gray  was  afterwards 
to  inform  Rosanna,  "to  so  much  as  take  this 
up";  he  was  left  with  everything  on  his  hands 
but  the  character  of  his  identity,  the  indications 
of  his  face,  the  betrayals  he  should  so  much  less 
succeed  in  suppressing  than  his  adversary  would 
succeed  in  reading  them.  The  figure  presented 
hadn't  stirred  from  his  posture  otherwise  than 
by  a  motion  of  eye  just  perceptible  as  Graham 
moved;  it  was  drinking  him  in,  our  hero  felt, 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

and  by  this  treatment  of  the  full  cup,  continuously 
applied  to  the  lips,  stillness  was  of  course  imposed. 
It  didn't  again  so  much  as  recognise,  by  any  sign 
given,  Graham's  remark  that  an  acquaintance 
with  Miss  Gaw  from  of  old  involved  naturally 
their  acquaintance:  there  was  no  question  of 
Miss  Gaw,  her  friend  found  himself  after  another 
minute  divining,  as  there  was  none  of  objects 
or  appearances  immediately  there  about  them; 
the  question  was  of  something  a  thousand  times 
more  relevant  and  present,  of  something  the  in 
terloper's  silence,  far  more  than  breathed  words 
could  have  done,  represented  the  fond  hope  of 
mastering. 

Graham  thus  held  already,  by  the  old  man's 
conviction,  a  secret  of  high  value,  yet  which, 
with  the  occasion  stretched  a  little,  would  prac 
tically  be  at  his  service — so  much  as  that  at  least, 
with  the  passage  of  another  moment,  he  had  con 
cluded  to;  and  all  the  while,  in  the  absurdest 
way,  without  his  guessing,  without  his  at  all 
measuring,  his  secret  himself.  Mr.  Gaw  fairly 
made  him  want  to — want,  that  is,  as  a  prelim 
inary  or  a  stopgap,  to  guess  what  it  had  best, 
most  desirably  and  most  effectively,  become;  for 
shouldn't  he  positively  like  to  have  something  of 
the  sort  in  order  just  to  disoblige  this  gentleman  ? 
Strange  enough  how  it  came  to  him  at  once  as  a 
result  of  the  father's  refusal  of  attention  to  any 
connection  he  might  have  glanced  at  with  the 

90 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

daughter,  strange  enough  how  it  came  to  him, 
under  the  first  flush  of  heat  he  had  known  since 
his  arrival,  that  two  could  play  at  such  a  game 
and  that  if  Rosanna's  interests  were  to  be  so 
slighted  her  relative  himself  should  miss  even  the 
minimum  of  application  as  one  of  them.  "He 
must  have  wanted  to  know,  he  must  have  wanted 
to  know—  -!"  this  young  woman  was  on  a  later 
day  to  have  begun  to  explain;  without  going  on, 
however,  since  by  that  time  Gray  had  rather 
made  out,  the  still  greater  rush  of  his  impressions 
helping,  the  truth  of  Mr.  Gaw's  desire.  It  bore, 
that  appetite,  upon  a  single  point  and,  daughter 
or  no  daughter,  on  nothing  else  in  the  world — 
the  question  of  what  Gray's  "interest,"  in  the 
light  of  his  uncle's  intentions,  might  size  up  to; 
those  intentions  having,  to  the  Gaw  imagination, 
been  of  course  apprehensible  on  the  spot,  and 
within  the  few  hours  that  had  lapsed,  by  a  nephew 
even  of  but  rudimentary  mind.  At  the  present 
hour  meanwhile,  short  of  the  miracle  which  our 
friend's  counter-scrutiny  alone  could  have  brought 
about,  there  worked  for  this  ytnmg  intelligence, 
and  with  no  small  sharpness,  the  fact  itself  of 
such  a  revealed  relation  to  the  ebb  of  their  host's 
life — upon  which  was  thrust  the  appearance  of 
its  being,  watch  in  hand,  all  impatiently,  or  in 
other  words  all  offensively,  timed.  The  very  air 
at  this  instant  tasted  to  Gray,  quite  as  if  some 
thing  under  his  tongue  had  suddenly  turned  from 

91 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

the  sweet  to  the  appreciably  sour,  of  an  assump 
tion  diffused  through  it  in  respect  to  the  rudi 
ments  of  mind.  He  was  afterwards  to  date  the 
breaking-in  upon  him  of  the  general  measure  of 
the  smallest  vision  of  business  a  young  man  might 
self-respectingly  confess  to  from  Mr.  Gaw's  ex 
traordinary  tacit  "Oh  come,  you  can't  fool  me: 
don't  I  know  you  know  what  I  want  to  know — 
don't  I  know  what  it  must  mean  for  you  to  have 
been  here  since  six  o'clock  this  morning  with 
nothing  whatever  else  to  do  than  just  to  take  it 
in?" 

That  was  it — Gray  was  to  have  taken  in  the 
more  or  less  definite  value  involved  for  him  in 
his  uncle's  supposedly  near  extinction,  and  was 
to  be  capable,  if  not  of  expressing  it  on  the  spot 
in  the  only  terms  in  which  a  value  of  any  sort 
could  exist  for  this  worthy,  yet  still  at  least  of 
liability  to  such  a  betrayal  as  would  yield  him 
something  to  conclude  upon.  It  was  only  after 
wards,  once  more,  that  our  young  man  was  to 
master  the  logic  of  the  conclusive  as  it  prevailed 
for  Mr.  Gaw;  what  concerned  his  curiosity  was 
to  settle  whether  or  no  they  were  in  presence 
together  of  a  really  big  fact — distinguishing  as 
the  Gaw  mind  did  among  such  dimensions  and 
addressed  as  it  essentially  was  to  a  special  ques 
tion — a  question  as  yet  unrecognised  by  Gray. 
He  was  subsequently  to  have  his  friend's  word 
to  go  upon — when,  in  the  extraordinary  light  of 

92 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

Rosanna's  explication,  he  read  clear  what  he  had 
been  able  on  the  verandah  but  half  to  glimmer 
out:  the  queer  truth  of  Mr.  Gaw's  hunger  to 
learn  to  what  extent  he  had  anciently,  to  what 
degree  he  had  irremediably,  ruined  his  whilom 
associate.  He  didn't  know — so  strange  was  it, 
at  the  time  and  since,  that,  thanks  to  the  way 
Mr.  Betterman  had  himself  fixed  things,  he 
couldn't  be  sure;  but  what  he  wanted,  and  what 
he  hung  about  so  displeasingly  to  sniff  up  the 
least  stray  sign  of,  was  a  confirmation  of  his 
belief  that  Doctor  Hatch's  and  Miss  Mumby's 
patient  had  never  really  recovered  from  the 
wound  of  years  before.  They  were  nursing  him 
now  for  another  complaint  altogether,  this  one 
admittedly  such  as  must,  with  but  the  scantest 
further  reprieve,  dispose  of  him;  whereas  doubts 
were  deep,  as  Mr.  Gaw  at  least  entertained  them, 
as  to  whether  the  damage  he  supposed  his  own 
just  resentment  to  have  inflicted  when  propriety 
and  opportunity  combined  to  inspire  him  was 
amenable  even  to  nursing  the  most  expert  or  to 
medication  the  most  subtle.  These  mysteries  of 
calculation  were  of  course  impenetrable  to  Gray 
during  the  moments  at  which  we  see  him  so  al- 
most  indescribably  exposed  at  once  and  rein- 
forced;  but  the  effect  of  the  sharper  and  sharper 
sense  as  of  a  spring  pressed  by  his  companion  was  K 
that  a  whole  consciousness  suddenly  welled  up  in  \ 
him  and  that  within  a  few  more  seconds  he  had  \ 

93 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

become  aware  of  a  need  absolutely  adverse  to 
any  trap  that  might  be  laid  for  his  candour.  He 
could  as  little  have  then  said  why  as  he  could 
vividly  have  phrased  it  under  the  knowledge  to 
come,  but  that  his  mute  interlocutor  desired  some 
how  their  association  in  a  judgment  of  what  his 
uncle  was  " worth,"  a  judgment  from  which  a 
comparatively  conceited  nephew  might  receive  an 
incidental  lesson,  played  through  him  as  a  certi 
tude  and  produced  quite  another  inclination. 
That  recognition  of  the  pleasant  on  which  he  had 
been  floating  affirmed  itself  as  in  the  very  face 
of  so  embodied  a  pretension  to  affirm  the  direct 
opposite,  to  thrust  up  at  him  in  fine  a  horrid  con 
tradiction — a  contradiction  which  he  next  heard 
himself  take,  after  the  happiest  fashion,  the 
straightest  way  to  rebut. 

"I'm  sure  you'll  be  glad  to  know  that  I  seem 
to  be  doing  my  uncle  a  tremendous  lot  of  good. 
They  tell  me  I'm  really  bringing  him  round" — 
and  Graham  smiled  down  at  little  blanched  Mr. 
Gaw.  "I  don't  despair  at  all  of  his  getting  much 
better." 

It  was  on  this  that  for  the  first  time  Mr.  Gaw 

became  articulate.  "Better ?"  he  strangely 

quavered,  and  as  if  his  very  eyes  questioned  such 
conscious  flippancy. 

"Why  yes — through  cheering  him  up.  He 
takes,  I  gather,"  Gray  went  on,  "as  much  pleasure 

as  I  do !"  His  assurance,  however,  had 

94 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

within  the  minute  dropped  a  little — the  effect  of 
it  might  really  reach,  he  apprehended,  beyond 
his  idea.  The  old  man  had  been  odd  enough, 
but  now  of  a  sudden  he  looked  sick,  and  that 
one  couldn't  desire. 

'  'Pleasure'-  -?"  he  was  nevertheless  able 
to  echo;  while  it  struck  Gray  that  no  sound  so 
weak  had  ever  been  so  sharp,  or  none  so  sharp 

ever  so  weak.     "Pleasure   in   dying ?"  Mr. 

Gaw  asked  in  this  flatness  of  doubt. 

"But  my  dear  sir,"  said  Gray,  his  impulse  to 
be  jaunty  still  nevertheless  holding  out  a  little, 
"but,  my  dear  sir,  if,  as  it  strikes  me,  he  isn't 
dying ?" 

"Oh  twaddle !"  snapped  Mr.  Gaw  with  the 
emphasis  of  his  glare — shifted  a  moment,  Gray 
next  saw,  to  a  new  object  in  range.  Gray  felt 
himself  even  before  turning  for  it  rejoined  by 
Miss  Mumby,  who,  rounding  the  corner  of  the 
house,  had  paused  as  in  presence  of  an  odd  con 
junction;  not  made  the  less  odd  moreover  by 
Mr.  Gaw's  instant  appeal  to  her.  "You  think 
he  ain't  then  going  to ? " 

He  had  to  leave  it  at  that,  but  Miss  Mumby 
supplied,  with  the  loudest  confidence,  what  ap 
peared  to  be  wanted.  "He  ain't  going  to  get 
better?  Oh  we  hope  so!"  she  declared  to  Gra 
ham's  delight. 

It  helped  him  to  contribute  in  his  own  way. 
"Mr.  Gaw's  surprise  seems  for  his  holding  out!" 

95 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

"Oh  I  guess  he'll  hold  out,"  Miss  Mumby  was 
pleased  to  say. 

"Then  if  he  ain't  dying  what's  the  fuss  about  ?" 
Mr.  Gaw  wanted  to  know. 

"Why  there  ain't  any  fuss — but  what  you 
seem  to  make,"  Miss  Mumby  could  quite  assure 
him. 

"Oh  well,  if  you  answer  for  it—  -!"  He  got 
up  on  this,  though  with  an  alertness  that,  to 
Gray's  sense,  didn't  work  quite  truly,  and  stood 
an  instant  looking  from  one  of  his  companions 
to  the  other,  while  our  young  man's  eyes,  for 
their  part,  put  a  question  to  Miss  Mumby 's — 
a  question  which,  articulated,  would  have  had 
the  sense  of  "What  on  earth's  the  matter  with 
him?"  There  seemed  no  knowing  how  Mr. 
Gaw  would  take  things — as  Miss  Mumby,  for 
that  matter,  appeared  also  at  once  to  reflect. 

"We're  sure  enough  not  to  want  to  have  you 
sick  too,"  she  declared  indeed  with  more  cheer 
than  apprehension;  to  which  she  added,  however, 
to  cover  all  the  ground,  "You  just  leave  Mr. 
Betterman  to  us  and  take  care  of  yourself.  We 
never  say  die  and  we  won't  have  you  say  it — 
either  about  him  or  anyone  else,  Mr.  Gaw." 

This  gentleman,  so  addressed,  straightened  and 
cleared  himself  in  such  a  manner  as  to  show  that 
he  saw,  for  the  moment,  Miss  Mumby 's  point; 
which  he  then,  a  wondrous  small  concentration 
of  studied  blankness — studied,  that  is,  his  com- 

96 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

panions  were  afterwards  both  to  show  they  had 
felt — commemorated  his  appreciation  of  in  a  tiny, 
yet  triumphant,  "Well,  that's  all  right!" 

"It  ain't  so  right  but  what  Fm  going  to  see 
you  home,"  Miss  Mumby  returned  with  au 
thority;  adding,  however,  for  Graham's  benefit, 
that  she  had  come  down  to  tell  him  his  uncle 
was  now  ready.  "You  just  go  right  up — you'll 
find  Miss  Goodenough  there.  And  you'll  see  for 
yourself,"  she  said,  "how  fresh  he  is!" 

"Thanks — that  will  be  beautiful!"  Gray 
brightly  responded;  but  with  his  eyes  on  Mr. 
Gaw,  whom  of  a  sudden,  somehow,  he  didn't 
like  to  leave. 

It  at  any  rate  determined  on  the  little  man's 
part  a  surprised  inquiry.  "Then  you  haven't 
seen  him  yet — with  your  grand  account  of  him  ? " 

"No — but  the  account,"  Gray  smiled,  "has 
an  authority  beyond  mine.  Besides,"  he  kept  on 
after  this  gallant  reference,  "I  feel  what  I  shall 
do  for  him." 

"Oh  they'll  have  great  times  !" — Miss  Mumby, 
with  an  arm  at  the  old  man's  service,  bravely 
guaranteed  it.  But  she  also  admonished  Graham: 
"Don't  keep  him  waiting,  and  mind  what  Miss 
Goodenough  tells  you  !  So  now,  Mr.  Gaw — you're 
to  mind  me  I"  she  concluded;  while  this  subject 
of  her  more  extemporised  attention  so  far  com 
plied  as  slowly  to  face  with  her  in  the  direction 
of  the  other  house.  Gray  wondered  about  him, 

97 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

but  immensely  trusted  Miss  Mumby,  and  only 
watched  till  he  saw  them  step  off  together  to  the 
lawn,  Mr.  Gaw  independent  of  support,  with 
something  in  his  consciously  stiffened  even  if  not 
painfully  assumed  little  air,  as  noted  thus  from 
behind,  that  quite  warranted  his  protectress. 
Seen  that  way,  yes,  he  was  a  tremendous  little 
person;  and  Gray,  excited,  immensely  readvised 
and  turning  accordingly  to  his  own  business,  felt 
the  assault  of  impressions  fairly  shake  him  as  he 
went — shake  him  though  it  apparently  seemed 
most  capable  of  doing  but  to  the  effect  of  hilarity. 


II 

WHETHER  or  no  by  its  so  different  appearance 
from  that  of  Mr.  Gaw,  the  figure  propped  on 
pillows  in  the  vast  cool  room  and  lighted  in  such 
a  way  that  the  clear  deepening  west  seemed  to 
flush  toward  it,  through  a  wide  high  window,  in 
the  interest  of  its  full  effect,  impressed  our  young 
man  as  massive  and  expansive,  as  of  a  beautiful 
bland  dignity  indeed — though  emulating  Rosan- 
na's  relative,  he  was  at  first  to  gather,  by  a 
perfect  readiness  to  stare  rather  than  speak. 
Miss  Goodenough  had  hovered  a  little,  for  full 
assurance,  but  then  had  thrown  off  with  a  timbre 
of  voice  never  yet  used  for  Gray's  own  ear  in  any 
sick  room,  "Well,  I  guess  you  won't  come  to 
blows!"  and  had  left  them  face  to  face — besides 
leaving  the  air  quickened  by  the  freedom  of  her 
humour.  They  were  face  to  face  for  the  time 
across  an  interval  which,  to  do  her  justice,  she 
had  not  taken  upon  herself  to  deal  with  directly; 
this  in  spite  of  Gray's  apprehension  at  the  end 
of  a  minute  that  she  might,  by  the  touch  of  her 
hand  or  the  pitch  of  her  spirit,  push  him  further 
forward  than  he  had  immediately  judged  decent 
to  advance.  He  had  stopped  at  a  certain  dis 
tance  from  the  great  grave  bed,  stopped  really 
for  consideration  and  deference,  or  through  the 

99 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

instinct  of  submitting  himself  first  of  all  to  ap 
proval,  or  at  least  to  encouragement;  the  space, 
not  great  enough  for  reluctance  and  not  small 
enough  for  presumption,  showed  him  ready  to 
obey  any  sign  his  uncle  should  make.  Mr.  Bet- 
terman  struck  him,  in  this  high  quietude  of  con 
templation,  much  less  as  formidable  than  as 
mildly  and  touchingly  august;  he  had  not  sup 
posed  him,  he  became  suddenly  aware,  so  great 
a  person — a  presence  like  that  of  some  weary 
veteran  of  affairs,  one  of  the  admittedly  eminent 
whose  last  words  would  be  expected  to  figure  in 
history.  The  large  fair  face,  rather  square  than 
heavy,  was  neither  clouded  nor  ravaged,  but 
finely  serene;  the  silver-coloured  hair  seemed  to 
bind  the  broad  high  brow  as  with  a  band  of  splen 
did  silk,  while  the  eyes  rested  on  Gray  with  an 
air  of  acceptance  beyond  attestation  by  the  mere 
play  of  cheer  or  the  comparative  gloom  of  re 
lief. 

"Ah  le  beau  type,  le  beau  type!"  was  during 
these  instants  the  visitor's  inward  comment 
breaking  into  one  of  the  strange  tongues  that 
experience  had  appointed  him  privately  to  use, 
in  many  a  case,  for  the  appropriation  of  aspects 
and  appearances.  It  was  not  till  afterwards  that 
he  happened  to  learn  how  his  uncle  had  been 
capable,  two  or  three  hours  before  seeing  him, 
of  offering  cheek  and  chin  to  the  deft  ministra 
tion  of  a  barber,  a  fact  highly  illuminating,  though 

100 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

by  that  time  the  gathered  lights  were  thick. 
What  the  patient  owed  on  the  spot  to  the  sacri 
fice,  he  easily  made  out,  was  that  look  as  of  the 
last  refinement  of  preparation,  that  positive 
splendour  of  the  immaculate,  which  was  really, 
on  one's  taking  it  all  in,  but  part  of  an  earnest 
recognition  of  his  guest's  own  dignity.  The  grave 
beauty  of  the  personal  presence,  the  vague  an 
ticipation  as  of  something  that  might  go  on  to 
be  commemorated  for  its  example,  the  great 
pure  fragrant  room,  bathed  in  the  tempered 
glow  of  the  afternoon's  end,  the  general  lucidity 
and  tranquillity  and  security  of  the  whole  pre 
sented  case,  begot  in  fine,  on  our  young  friend's 
part,  an  extraordinary  sense  that  as  he  himself 
was  important  enough  to  be  on  show,  so  these 
peculiar  perfections  that  met  him  were  but  so 
many  virtual  honours  rendered  and  signs  of  the 
high  level  to  which  he  had  mounted.  On  show, 
yes — that  was  it,  and  more  wonderfully  than 
could  be  said:  Gray  was  sure  after  a  little  of 
how  right  he  was  to  stand  off  as  yet  in  any  in 
terest  of  his  own  significance  that  might  be  in 
volved.  There  was  clearly  something  his  uncle 
so  wanted  him  to  be  that  he  should  run  no  pos 
sible  danger  of  being  it  to  excess,  and  that  if  he 
might  only  there  and  then  grasp  it  he  would  ask 
but  to  proceed,  for  decency's  sake,  according  to 
his  lights:  just  as  so  short  a  time  before  a  like 
force  of  suggestion  had  played  upon  him  from 

101 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

Mr.  Gaw — each  of  these  appeals  clothing  him 
in  its  own  way  with  such  an  oddity  of  pertinence, 
such  a  bristling  set  of  attributes.  This  wait  of 
the  parties  to  the  present  one  for  articulate  ex 
pression,  on  either  side,  of  whatever  it  was  that 
might  most  concern  them  together,  promised  also 
to  last  as  the  tension  had  lasted  down  on  the 
verandah,  and  would  perhaps  indeed  have  drawn 
itself  further  out  if  Gray  hadn't  broken  where  he 
stood  into  a  cry  of  admiration — since  it  could 
scarcely  be  called  less — that  blew  to  the  winds 
every  fear  of  overstepping. 

"It's  really  worth  one's  coming  so  far,  uncle, 
if  you  don't  mind  my  saying  so — it's  really  worth 
a  great  pilgrimage  to  see  anything  so  splendid." 

The  old  man  heard,  clearly,  as  by  some  process 
that  was  still  deeply  active;  and  then  after  a 
pause  that  represented,  Gray  was  sure,  no  failure 
at  all  of  perception,  but  only  the  wide  embrace 
of  a  possibility  of  pleasure,  sounded  bravely  back: 
"Does  it  come  up  to  what  you've  seen?" 

It  was  Gray  rather  who  was  for  a  moment 
mystified — though  only  to  further  spontaneity 
when  he  had  caught  the  sense  of  the  question. 
"Oh,  you  come  up  to  everything — by  which  I 
mean,  if  I  may,  that  nothing  comes  up  to  you ! 
I  mean,  if  I  may,"  he  smiled,  "that  you  yourself, 
uncle,  affect  me  as  the  biggest  and  most  native 
American  impression  that  I  can  possibly  be  ex 
posed  to." 

102 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

"Well,"  said  Mr.  Betterman,  and  again  as  with 
a  fond  deliberation,  "what  I'm  going  to  like,  I 
see,  is  to  listen  to  the  way  you  talk.  That,"  he 
added  with  his  soft  distinctness,  a  singleness  of 
note  somehow  for  the  many  things  meant,  "that, 
I  guess,  is  about  what  I  most  wanted  you  to  come 
for.  Unless  it  be  to  look  at  you  too.  I  like  to 
look  right  at  you." 

"Well,"  Gray  harmoniously  laughed  again,  "if 

even  that  can  give  you  pleasure !"  He  stood 

as  for  inspection,  easily  awkward,  pleasantly  loose, 
holding  up  his  head  as  if  to  make  the  most  of  no 
great  stature.  "I've  never  been  so  sorry  that 
there  isn't  more  of  me." 

The  fine  old  eyes  on  the  pillow  kept  steadily 
taking  him  in;  he  could  quite  see  that  he  hap 
pened  to  be,  as  he  might  have  called  it,  right; 
and  though  he  had  never  felt  himself,  within  his 
years,  extraordinarily  or  excitingly  wrong,  so  that 
this  felicity  might  have  turned  rather  flat  for 
him,  there  was  still  matter  for  emotion,  for  the 
immediate  throb  and  thrill,  in  finding  success  so 
crown  him.  He  had  been  spared,  thank  goodness, 
any  positive  shame,  but  had  never  known  his 
brow  brushed  or  so  much  as  tickled  by  the  laurel 
or  the  bay.  "Does  it  mean,"  he  might  have 
murmured  to  himself,  "the  strangest  shift  of 
standards?" — but  his  uncle  had  meanwhile 
spoken.  "Well,  there's  all  of  you  I'm  going  to 
want.  And  there  must  be  more  of  you  than  I 

103 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

see.  Because  you  are  different/'  Mr.  Better- 
man  considered. 

"But  different  from  what?"  Truly  was  Gray 
interested  to  know. 

It  took  Mr.  Betterman  a  moment  to  say,  but 
he  seemed  to  convey  that  it  might  have  been 
guessed.  "From  what  you'd  have  been  if  you 
had  come." 

The  young  man  was  indeed  drawn  in.  "If 
I  had  come  years  ago?  Well,  perhaps,"  he  so 
far  happily  agreed — "for  Fve  often  thought  of 
that  myself.  Only,  you  see,"  he  laughed,  "I'm 
different  from  that  too.  I  mean  from  what  I  was 
when  I  didn't  come." 

Mr.  Betterman  looked  at  it  quietly.  "You're 
different  in  the  sense  that  you're  older — and  you 
seem  to  me  rather  older  than  I  supposed.  All 
the  better,  all  the  better,"  he  continued  to  make 
out.  "You're  the  same  person  I  didn't  tempt, 
the  same  person  I  couldn't — that  time  when  I 
tried.  I  see  you  are,  I  see  what  you  are." 

"You  see  terribly  much,  sir,  for  the  few  min 
utes  ! "  smiled  Gray. 

"Oh  when  I  want  to  see !"  the  old  man 

comfortably  enough  sighed.  "I  take  you  in,  I 
take  you  in;  though  I  grant  that  I  don't  quite 
see  how  you  can  understand.  Still,"  he  pursued, 
"there  are  things  for  you  to  tell  me.  You're 
different  from  anything,  and  if  we  had  time  for 
particulars  I  should  like  to  know  a  little  how 

104 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

you've  kept  so.  I  was  afraid  you  wouldn't  turn 
out  perhaps  so  thoroughly  the  sort  of  thing  I 
liked  to  think — for  I  hadn't  much  more  to  go 
upon  than  what  she  said,  you  know.  However," 
Mr.  Betterman  wound  up  as  with  due  comfort, 
"it's  by  what  she  says  that  I've  gone — and  I 
want  her  to  know  that  I  don't  feel  fooled." 

If  Gray's  wonderment  could  have  been  said  to 
rest  anywhere,  hour  after  hour,  long  enough  to 
be  detected  in  the  act,  the  detaining  question 
would  have  been  more  than  any  other  perhaps 
that  of  whether  Miss  Gaw  would  "come  up." 
Now  that  she  did  so  however,  in  this  quiet  way, 
it  had  no  strangeness  that  his  being  at  once  glad 
couldn't  make  but  a  mouthful  of;  and  the  recent 
interest  of  what  she  had  lately  written  to  him 
was  as  nothing  to  the  interest  of  her  becoming 
personally  his  uncle's  theme.  With  which,  at 
the  same  time,  it  was  pleasanter  to  him  than  any 
thing  else  to  speak  of  her  himself.  "If  you  allude 
to  Rosanna  Gaw  you'll  no  doubt  understand  how 
tremendously  I  want  to  see  her." 

The  sick  man  waited  a  little — but  not,  it  quite 
seemed,  from  lack  of  understanding.  "She  wants 
tremendously  to  see  you,  Graham.  You  might 
know  that  of  course  from  her  going  to  work  so." 
Then  again  he  gathered  his  thoughts  and  again 
after  a  little  went  on.  "She  had  a  good  idea, 
and  I  love  her  for  it;  but  I'm  afraid  my  own 
hasn't  been  so  very  much  to  give  her  the  satis- 

105 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

faction.  I've  wanted  it  myself,  and — well,  here 
I  am  getting  it  from  you.  Yes,"  he  kept  up,  his 
eyes  never  moving  from  his  nephew,  "you  couldn't 
give  me  more  if  you  had  tried,  from  so  far  back, 
on  purpose.  But  I  can't  tell  you  half!"  He  ex 
haled  a  long  breath — he  was  a  little  spent.  "You 
tell  me.  You  tell  me." 

"I'm  tiring  you,  sir,"  Gray  said. 

"Not  by  letting  me  see — you'd  only  tire  me 
if  you  didn't/'  Then  for  the  first  time  his  eyes 
glanced  about.  "Haven't  they  put  a  place  for 
you  to  sit  ?  Perhaps  they  knew,"  he  suggested, 
while  Gray  reached  out  for  a  chair,  "perhaps 
they  knew  just  how  I'd  want  to  see  you.  There 
seems  nothing  they  don't  know,"  he  contentedly 
threw  off  again. 

Gray  had  his  chair  before  him,  his  hands  on 
the  back  tilting  it  a  little.  "They're  extraordi 
nary.  I've  never  seen  anything  like  them.  They 
help  me  tremendously,"  he  cheerfully  confessed. 

Mr.  Betterman,  at  this,  seemed  to  wonder. 
"Why,  have  you  difficulties?" 

"Well,"  said  Gray,  still  with  his  chair,  "you 
say  I'm  different — if  you  mean  it  for  my  being 
alien  from  what  I  feel  surrounding  me.  But  if 
you  knew  how  funny  all  that  seems  to  me,"  he 
laughed,  "you'd  understand  that  I  clutch  at 
protection." 

'Funny'?" — his  host  was  clearly  interested, 
without  offence,  in  the  term. 

106 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

"Well  then  terrific,  sir!" 

"So  terrific  that  you  need  protection  ?" 

"Well,"  Gray  explained,  gently  shaking  his 
chair-back,  "when  one  simply  sees  that  nothing 
of  one's  former  experience  serves,  and  that  one 
doesn't  know  anything  about  anything—  - ! " 

More  than  ever  at  this  his  uncle's  look  might 
have  covered  him.  "Anything  round  here — no ! 
That's  it,  that's  it,"  the  old  man  blandly  repeated. 
That's  just  the  way — I  mean  the  way  I  hoped. 
She  knows  you  don't  know — and  doesn't  want 
you  to  either.  But  put  down  your  chair,"  he 
said;  and  then  after,  when  Gray,  instantly  and 
delicately  complying,  had  placed  the  precious 
article  with  every  precaution  back  where  it  had 
stood:  "Sit  down  here  on  the  bed.  There's 
margin." 

"Yes,"  smiled  Gray,  doing  with  all  consider 
ation  as  he  was  told,  "you  don't  seem  anywhere 
very  much  a  I9 e trait  " 

"I  presume,"  his  uncle  returned,  "you  know 
French  thoroughly." 

Gray  confessed  to  the  complication.  "Of 
course  when  one  has  heard  it  almost  from  the 
cradle !" 

"And  the  other  tongues  too?" 

He  seemed  to  wonder  if,  for  his  advantage,  he 
mightn't  deny  them.  "Oh  a  couple  of  others. 
In  the  countries  there  they  come  easy." 

"Well,  they  wouldn't  have  come  easy  here — 
107 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

and  I  guess  nothing  else  would;  I  mean  of  the 
things  we  principally  grow.  And  I  won't  have 
you  tell  me,"  Mr.  Betterman  said,  "that  if  you 
had  taken  that  old  chance  they  might  have  done 
so.  We  don't  know  anything  about  it,  and  at 
any  rate  it  would  have  spoiled  you.  I  mean  for 
what  you  are." 

"Oh,"  returned  Gray,  on  the  bed,  but  pressing 
lightly,  "oh  what  I  'am' !" 

"My  point  isn't  so  much  for  what  you  are  as 
for  what  you're  not.  So  I  won't  have  anything 
else;  I  mean  I  won't  have  you  but  as  I  want 
you,"  his  host  explained.  "I  want  you  just  this 
way." 

With  which,  while  the  young  man  kept  his 
arms  folded  and  his  hands  tucked  away  as  for 
compression  of  his  personal  extent  and  weight, 
they  exchanged,  at  their  close  range,  the  most 
lingering  look  yet.  Extraordinary  to  him,  in  the 
gravity  of  this  relation,  his  deeper  impression  of 
something  beautiful  and  spreadingly  clear — very 
much  as  if  the  wide  window  and  the  quiet  clean 
sea  and  the  finer  sunset  light  had  all  had,  for  assis 
tance  and  benediction,  their  word  to  say  to  it. 
They  seemed  to  combine  most  to  remark  together 
"What  an  exquisite  person  is  your  uncle!"  This 
is  what  he  had  for  the  minute  the  sense  of  taking 
from  them,  and  the  expression  of  his  assent  to  it 
was  in  the  tone  of  his  next  rejoinder.  "If  I  could 

only  know  what  it  is  you'd  most  like !" 

108 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

"Never  mind  what  I  most  like — only  tell  me, 
only  tell  me,"  his  companion  again  said:  "You 
can't  say  anything  that  won't  absolutely  suit  me; 
in  fact  I  defy  you  to,  though  you  mayn't  at  all 
see  why  that's  the  case.  I've  got  you — without 
a  flaw.  So!"  Mr.  Betterman  triumphantly 
breathed.  Gray's  sense  was  by  this  time  of  his 
being  examined  and  appraised  as  never  in  his 
life  before — very  much  as  in  the  exposed  state 
of  an  important  "piece,"  an  object  of  value  picked, 
for  finer  estimation,  from  under  containing  glass. 
There  was  nothing  then  but  to  face  it,  unless 
perhaps  also  to  take  a  certain  comfort  in  his 
being,  as  he  might  feel,  practically  clean  and  in 
condition.  That  such  an  hour  had  its  meaning, 
and  that  the  meaning  might  be  great  for  him, 
this  of  course  surged  softly  in,  more  and  more, 
from  every  point  of  the  circle  that  held  him;  but 
with  the  consciousness  making  also  more  at  each 
moment  for  an  uplifting,  a  fantastic  freedom,  a 
sort  of  sublime  simplification,  in  which  nothing 
seemed  to  depend  on  him  or  to  have  at  any  time 
so  depended.  He  was  really  face  to  face  thus 
with  bright  immensities,  and  the  handsome  old 
presence  from  which,  after  a  further  moment,  a 
hand  had  reached  forth  a  little  to  take  his  own, 
guaranteed  by  the  quietest  of  gestures  at  once 
their  truth  and  the  irrelevance,  as  he  could  only 
feel  it,  of  their  scale.  Cool  and  not  weak,  to  his 
responsive  grasp,  this  retaining  force,  to  which 

109 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

strength  was  added  by  what  next  came.  "It's 
not  for  myself,  it's  not  for  myself — I  mean  your 
being  as  I  say.  What  do  I  matter  now  except 
to  have  recognised  it?  No,  Graham — it's  in  an 
other  connection."  Was  the  connection  then  with 
Rosanna  ?  Graham  had  time  to  wonder,  and 
even  to  think  what  a  big  thing  this  might  make 
of  it,  before  his  uncle  brought  out:  "It's  for  the 
world." 

"The  world  ?" — Gray's  vagueness  again  reigned. 

"Well,  our  great  public." 

"Oh  your  great  public !" 

The  exclamation,  the  cry  of  alarm,  even  if  also 
of  amusement  in  face  of  such  a  connection  as 
that,  quickened  for  an  instant  the  good  touch  of 
the  cool  hand.  "That's  the  way  I  like  you  to 
sound.  It's  the  way  she  told  me  you  would — I 
mean  that  would  be  natural  to  you.  And  it's 
precisely  why — being  the  awful  great  public  it 
is — we  require  the  difference  that  you'll  make. 
So  you  see  you're  for  our  people." 

Poor  Graham's  eyes  widened.  "I  shall  make 
a  difference  for  your  people ? " 

But  his  uncle  serenely  went  on.  "Don't  think 
you  know  them  yet,  or  what  it's  like  over  here 
at  all.  You  may  think  so  and  feel  you're  pre 
pared.  But  you  don't  know  till  you've  had  the 
whole  thing  up  against  you." 

"May  I  ask,  sir,"  Gray  smiled,  "what  you're 
talking  about  ?" 

no 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

His  host  met  his  eyes  on  it,  but  let  it  drop. 
"You'll  see  soon  enough  for  yourself.  Don't 
mind  what  I  say.  That  isn't  the  thing  for  you 
now — it's  all  done.  Only  be  true,"  said  Mr.  Bet- 
terman.  "You  are  and,  as  I've  said,  can't  help 
yourself."  With  which  he  relapsed  again  to  one 
of  his  good  conclusions.  "And  after  all  don't 
mind  the  public  either." 

"Oh,"  returned  Gray,  "all  great  publics  are 
awful." 

"Ah  no  no — I  won't  have  that.  Perhaps  they 
may  be,  but  the  trouble  we're  concerned  with  is 
about  ours — and  about  some  other  things  too." 
Gray  felt  in  the  hand's  tenure  a  small  emphasiz 
ing  lift  of  the  arm,  while  the  head  moved  a  little 
as  off  toward  the  world  they  spoke  of — which 
amounted  for  our  young  man,  however,  but  to  a 
glance  at  all  the  outside  harmony  and  prosperity, 
bathed  as  these  now  seemed  in  the  colour  of  the 
flushed  sky.  Absurd  altogether  that  he  should 
be  in  any  way  enlisted  against  such  things.  His 
entertainer,  all  the  same,  continued  to  see  the 
reference  and  to  point  it.  "The  enormous  pre 
ponderance  of  money.  Money  is  their  life." 

"But  surely  even  here  it  isn't  everyone  who 
has  it.  Also,"  he  freely  laughed,  "isn't  it  a  good 
thing  to  have?" 

"A  very  good  thing  indeed."  Then  his  uncle 
waited  as  in  the  longest  inspection  yet.  "But 
you  don't  know  anything  about  it." 

in 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

"Not  about  large  sums,"  Gray  cheerfully  ad 
mitted. 

"I  mean  it  has  never  been  near  you.  That 
sticks  out  of  you — the  way  it  hasn't.  I  knew  it 
couldn't  have  been — and  then  she  told  me  she 
knew.  I  see  you're  a  blank — and  nobody  here's 
a  blank,  not  a  creature  I've  ever  touched.  That's 
what  I've  wanted,"  the  old  man  went  on — "a 
perfect  clean  blank.  I  don't  mean  there  aren't 
heaps  of  them  that  are  damned  fools,  just  as 
there  are  heaps  of  others,  bigger  heaps  probably, 
that  are  damned  knaves;  except  that  mostly  the 
knave  is  the  biggest  fool.  But  those  are  not 
blanks;  they're  full  of  the  poison — without  a 
blest  other  idea.  Now  you're  the  blank  I  want, 
if  you  follow — and  yet  you're  not  the  blatant 


ass." 


"I'm  not  sure  I  quite  follow,"  Gray  laughed, 
"but  I'm  very  much  obliged." 

"Have  you  ever  done  three  cents'  worth  of 
business?"  Mr.  Betterman  judicially  asked. 

It  helped  our  young  man  to  some  ease  of  de 
lay.  "Well,  I'm  afraid  I  can't  claim  to  have  had 
much  business  to  do.  Also  you're  wrong,  sir," 
he  added,  "about  my  not  being  a  blatant  ass. 
Oh  please  understand  that  I  am  a  blatant  ass. 
Let  there  be  no  mistake  about  that,"  Gray  touch- 
ingly  pleaded. 

"Yes — but  not  on  the  subject  of  anything  but 
business." 

112 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

"Well — no  doubt  on  the  subject  of  business 
more  than  on  any  other." 

Still  the  good  eyes  rested.  "Tell  me  one  thing, 
other  than  that,  for  which  you  haven't  at  least 
some  intelligence." 

"Oh  sir,  there  are  no  end  of  things,  and  it's 
odd  one  should  have  to  prove  that — though  it 
would  take  me  long.  But  I  allow  there's  nothing 
I  understand  so  little  and  like  so  little  as  the  mys 
tery  of  the  'market'  and  the  hustle  of  any  sort." 

"You  utterly  loathe  and  abhor  the  hustle! 
That's  what  I  blissfully  want  of  you,"  said  Mr. 
Betterman. 

"You  ask  of  me  the  declaration ?"  Gray 

considered.  "But  how  can  I  know,  don't  you 
see  ? — when  I  am  such  a  blank,  when  I've  never 
had  three  cents'  worth  of  business,  as  you  say, 
to  transact  ?" 

"The  people  who  don't  loathe  it  are  always 
finding  it  somehow  to  do,  even  if  preposterously 
for  the  most  part,  and  dishonestly.  Your  case," 
Mr.  Betterman  reasoned,  "is  that  you  haven't 
a  grain  of  the  imagination  of  any  such  interest. 
If  you  had  had,"  he  wound  up,  "it  would  have 
stirred  in  you  that  first  time." 

Gray  followed,  as  his  kinsman  called  it,  enough 
to  be  able  to  turn  his  memory  a  moment  on  this. 
"Yes,  I  think  my  imagination,  small  scrap  of  a 
thing  as  it  was,  did  work  then  somehow  against 
you." 

113 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

"Which  was  exactly  against  business" — the 
old  man  easily  made  the  point.  "I  was  business. 
I've  been  business  and  nothing  else  in  the  world. 
I'm  business  at  this  moment  still — because  I  can't 
be  anything  else.  I  mean  I've  such  a  head  for 
it.  So  don't  think  you  can  put  it  on  me  that  I 
haven't  thought  out  what  I'm  doing  to  good 
purpose.  I  do  what  I  do  but  too  abominably 
well."  With  which  he  weakened  for  the  first 
time  to  a  faint  smile.  "It's  none  of  your  af 
fair." 

"Isn't  it  a  little  my  affair,"  Gray  as  genialty 
objected,  "to  be  more  touched  than  I  can  ex 
press  by  your  attention  to  me — as  well  (if  you'll 
let  me  say  so)  as  rather  astonished  at  it  ? "  And 
then  while  his  host  took  this  without  response, 
only  engaged  as  to  more  entire  repletion  in  the 
steady  measure  of  him,  he  added  further,  even 
though  aware  in  sounding  it  of  the  complacency 
or  fatuity,  of  the  particular  absurdity,  his  ques 
tion  might  have  seemed  to  embody:  "What  in 
the  world  can  I  want  but  to  meet  you  in  every 
way?"  His  perception  at  last  was  full,  the  great 
strange  sense  of  everything  smote  his  eyes;  so 
that  without  the  force  of  his  effort  at  the  most 
general  amenity  possible  his  lids  and  his  young 
lips  might  have  convulsively  closed.  Even  for 
his  own  ear  "What  indeed  ?"  was  thus  the  ironic 
implication — which  he  felt  himself  quite  grimace 
to  show  he  should  have  understood  somebody 

114 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

else's  temptation  to  make.  Here,  however,  where 
his  uncle's  smile  might  pertinently  have  broadened, 
the  graver  blandness  settled  again,  leaving  him 
in  face  of  it  but  the  more  awkwardly  assured. 
He  felt  as  if  he  couldn't  say  enough  to  abate  the 
ugliness  of  that — and  perhaps  it  even  did  come 
out  to  the  fact  of  beauty  that  no  profession  of 
the  decent  could  appear  not  to  coincide  with  the 
very  candour  of  the  greedy.  "I'm  prepared  for 
anything,  yes — in  the  way  of  a  huge  inheritance": 
he  didn't  care  if  it  might  sound  like  that  when  he 
next  went  on,  since  what  could  he  do  but  just 
melt  to  the  whole  benignity  ?  "  If  I  only  under 
stood  what  it  is  I  can  best  do  for  you." 

"Do?  The  question  isn't  of  your  doing,  but 
simply  of  your  being." 

Gray  cast  about.  "But  don't  they  come  to 
the  same  thing?" 

"Well,  I  guess  that  for  you  they'll  have  to." 

"Yes,  sir,"  Gray  answered — "but  suppose  I 
should  say  'Don't  keep  insisting  so  on  me'?" 
Then  he  had  a  romantic  flight  which  was  at  the 
same  time,  for  that  moment  at  least,  a  sincere 
one.  "I  don't  know  that  I  came  out  so  very 
much  for  myself." 

"Well,  if  you  didn't  it  only  shows  the  more 
what  you  are" — Mr.  Betterman  made  the  point 
promptly.  "It  shows  you've  got  the  kind  of 
imagination  that  has  nothing  to  do  with  the 
kind  I  so  perfectly  see  you  haven't.  And  if  you 

"5 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

don't  do  things  for  yourself,''  he  went  on,  "you'll 
be  doing  them  the  more  for  just  what  I  say." 
With  which  too,  as  Graham  but  pleadingly  gaped : 
"You'll  be  doing  them  for  everyone  else — that 
is  finding  it  impossible  to  do  what  they  do.  From 
the  moment  they  notice  that — well,  it  will  be 
what  I  want.  We  know,  we  know,"  he  remarked 
further  and  as  if  this  quite  settled  it. 

Any  ambiguity  in  his  "we"  after  an  instant 
cleared  up;  he  was  to  have  alluded  but  ever  so 
sparely,  through  all  this  scene,  to  Rosanna  Gaw, 
but  he  alluded  now,  and  again  it  had  for  Gray 
an  amount  of  reference  that  was  like  a  great  sum 
of  items  in  a  bill  imperfectly  scanned.  None  the 
less  it  left  him  desiring  still  more  clearness.  His 
whole  soul  centred  at  this  point  in  the  need  not 
to  have  contributed  by  some  confused  accommo 
dation  to  a  strange  theory  of  his  future.  Strange 
he  could  but  feel  this  one  to  be,  however  simply, 
that  is  on  however  large  and  vague  an  assump 
tion,  it  might  suit  others,  amid  their  fathomless 
resources  and  their  luxuries  or  perversities  of 
waste,  to  see  it.  He  wouldn't  be  smothered  in 
the  vague,  whatever  happened,  and  had  now  the 
gasp  and  upward  shake  of  the  head  of  a  man  in 
too  deep  water.  "What  I  want  to  insist  on,"  he 
broke  out  with  it,  "is  that  I  mustn't  consent  to 
any  exaggeration  in  the  interest  of  your,  or  of 
any  other,  sublime  view  of  me,  view  of  my  ca 
pacity  of  any  sort.  There's  no  sublime  view  of 

116 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

me  to  be  taken  that  consorts  in  the  least  with 
any  truth;  and  I  should  be  a  very  poor  creature 
if  I  didn't  here  and  now  assure  you  that  no  proof 
in  the  world  exists,  or  has  for  a  moment  existed, 
of  my  being  capable  of  anything  whatever." 

He  might  have  supposed  himself  for  a  little  to 
have  produced  something  of  the  effect  that  would 
naturally  attach  to  a  due  vividness  in  this  truth 
— for  didn't  his  uncle  now  look  at  him  just  a  shade 
harder,  before  the  fixed  eyes  closed,  indeed,  as 
under  a  pressure  to  which  they  had  at  last  really 
to  yield  ?  They  closed,  and  the  old  white  face 
was  for  the  couple  of  minutes  so  thoroughly  still 
without  them  that  a  slight  uneasiness  quickened 
him,  and  it  would  have  taken  but  another  mo 
ment  to  make  a  slight  sound,  which  he  had  to 
turn  his  head  for  the  explanation  of,  reach  him 
as  the  response  to  an  appeal.  The  door  of  the 
room,  opening  gently,  had  closed  again  behind 
Miss  Goodenough,  who  came  forward  softly,  but 
with  more  gravity,  Gray  thought,  than  he  had 
previously  seen  her  show.  Still  in  his  place  and 
conscious  of  the  undiminished  freshness  of  her 
invalid's  manual  emphasis,  he  looked  at  her  for 
some  opinion  as  to  the  latter's  appearance,  or 
to  the  move  on  his  own  part  next  indicated;  dur 
ing  which  time  her  judgment  itself,  considering 
Mr.  Betterman,  a  trifle  heavily  waited.  Gray's 
doubt,  before  the  stillness  which  had  followed 
so  great  even  if  so  undiscourageable  an  effort, 

117 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

moved  him  to  some  play  of  disengagement;  where 
upon  he  knew  himself  again  checked,  and  there, 
once  more,  the  fine  old  eyes  rested  on  him.  "I'm 
afraid  I've  tired  him  out,"  he  could  but  say  to 
the  nurse,  who  made  the  motion  to  feel  her  pa 
tient's  pulse  without  the  effect  of  his  releasing  his 
visitor.  Gray's  hand  was  retained  still,  but  his 
kinsman's  eyes  and  next  words  were  directed  to 
Miss  Goodenough. 

"It's  all  right — even  more  so  than  I  told  you 
it  was  going  to  be." 

"Why  of  course  it's  all  right — you  look  too 
sweet  together!"  she  pronounced. 

"But  I  mean  I've  got  him;  I  mean  I  make 
him  squirm" — which  words  had  somehow  the 
richest  gravity  of  any  yet;  "but  all  it  does  for 
his  resistance  is  that  he  squirms  right  to  me." 

"Oh  we  won't  have  any  resistance!"  Miss 
Goodenough  freely  declared.  "Though  for  all 

the  fight  you've  got  in  you  still !"  she  in 

fine  altogether  backed  Mr.  Betterman. 

He  covered  his  nephew  again  as  for  a  final  or 
crushing  appraisement,  then  going  on  for  Miss 
Goodenough's  benefit:  "He  tried  something  a 
minute  ago  to  settle  me,  but  I  wish  you  could 
just  have  heard  how  he  expressed  himself." 

"It  is  a  pleasure  to  hear  him — when  he's  good  !" 
She  laughed  with  a  shade  of  impatience. 

"He's  never  so  good  as  when  he  wants  to  be 
bad.  So  there  you  are,  sir!"  the  old  man  said. 

118 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

"You're  like  the  princess  in  the  fairy-tale;  you've 
only  to  open  your  mouth " 

"And  the  pearls  and  diamonds  pop  out!" — 
Miss  Goodenough,  for  her  patient's  relief,  com 
pleted  his  meaning.  "So  don't  try  for  toads  and 
snakes!"  she  promptly  went  on  to  Gray.  To 
which  she  added  with  still  more  point:  "And 
now  you  must  go." 

"Not  one  little  minute  more?"  His  uncle 
still  held  him. 

"Not  one,  sir!"  Miss  Goodenough  decided. 

"It  isn't  to  talk,"  the  old  man  explained.  "I 
like  just  to  look  at  him." 

"So  do  I,"  said  Miss  Goodenough;  "but  we 
can't  always  do  everything  we  like." 

"No  then,  Graham — remember  that.  You'd 
like  to  have  persuaded  me  that  I  don't  know 
what  I  mean.  But  you  must  understand  you 
haven't." 

His  hand  had  loosened,  and  Gray  got  up,  turn 
ing  a  face  now  flushed  and  a  little  disordered 
from  one  of  them  to  the  other.  "I  don't  pre 
tend  to  understand  anything!" 

It  turned  his  uncle  to  their  companion.  "Isn't 
he  fine?" 

"Of  course  he's  fine,"  said  Miss  Goodenough; 
"but  you've  quite  worn  him  out." 

"Have  I  quite  worn  you  out?"  Mr.  Better- 
man  calmly  inquired. 

As  if  indeed  finished,  each  thumb  now  in  a 
119 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

pocket  of  his  trousers,  the  young  man  dimly 
smiled.  "I  think  you  must  have — quite." 

"Well,  let  Miss  Mumby  look  after  you.  He'll 
find  her  there?"  his  uncle  asked  of  her  colleague. 
And  then  as  the  latter  showed  at  this  her  first 
indecision,  "Isn't  she  somewhere  round?"  he 
demanded. 

Miss  Goodenough  had  wavered,  but  as  if  it 
really  mattered  for  the  friend  there  present  she 
responsibly  concluded.  "Well,  no — just  for  a 
while."  And  she  appealed  to  Gray's  indulgence. 
"She's  had  to  go  to  Mr.  Gaw." 

"Why,  is  Mr.  Gaw  sick?"  Mr.  Betterman 
asked  with  detachment. 

"That's  what  we  shall  know  when  she  comes 
back.  She'll  come  back  all  right,"  she  continued 
for  Gray's  encouragement. 

He  met  it  with  proper  interest.  "I'm  sure  I 
hope  so!" 

"Well,  don't  be  too  sure !"  his  uncle  judiciously 
said. 

"Oh  he  has  only  borrowed  her."  Miss  Good- 
enough  smoothed  it  down  even  as  she  smoothed 
Mr.  Betterman's  sheet,  while  with  the  same  move 
ment  of  her  head  she  wafted  Gray  to  the  door. 

"Mr.  Gaw,"  her  patient  returned,  "has  bor 
rowed  from  me  before.  Mr.  Gaw,  Graham—  -  !" 

"Yes  sir?"  said  Gray  with  the  door  ajar  and 
his  hand  on  the  knob. 

The  fine  old  presence  on  the  pillow  had  faltered 
1 20 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

before  expression;  then  it  appeared  rather  sigh 
ingly  and  finally  to  give  the  question  up.  "Well, 
Mr.  Gaw's  an  abyss." 

Gray  found  himself  suddenly  responsive.  "  Isn't 
he,  the  strange  man  ?" 

"The  strange  man — that's  it."  This  summary 
description  sufficed  now  to  Mr.  Betterman's 
achieved  indifference.  "But  you've  seen  him?" 

"Just  for  an  instant." 

"And  that  was  enough?" 

"Well,  I  don't  know."  Gray  himself  gave  it 
up.  "You're  all  so  fiercely  interesting!" 

"I  think  Rosanna's  lovely!"  Miss  Goodenough 
contributed,  to  all  appearance  as  an  attenuation, 
while  she  tucked  their  companion  in. 

"Oh  Miss  Gaw's  quite  another  matter,"  our 
young  man  still  paused  long  enough  to  reply. 

"Well,  I  don't  mean  but  what  she's  interest 
ing  in  her  way  too,"  Miss  Goodenough's  con 
science  prompted. 

"Oh  he  knows  all  about  her.  That's  all  right," 
Mr.  Betterman  remarked  for  his  nurse's  benefit. 

"Why  of  course  I  know  it,"  this  lady  candidly 
answered.  "Miss  Mumby  and  I  have  had  to 
feel  that.  I  guess  he'll  want  to  send  her  his  love," 
she  continued  across  to  Gray. 
t  "To  Miss  Mumby?"  asked  Gray,  his  general 
bewilderment  having  moments  of  aggravation. 

"Why  no — she's  sure  of  his  affection.  To 
Miss  Gaw.  Don't  you  want,"  she  inquired  of 

121 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

her  patient,  "to  send  your  love  to  that  poor 
anxious  girl  ? " 

"Is  she  anxious?"  Gray  returned  in  advance 
of  his  uncle. 

Miss  Goodenough  hung  fire  but  a  moment. 
"Well,  I  guess  I'd  be  in  her  place.  But  you'll 


see." 


"Then,"  said  Gray  to  his  host,  "if  Rosanna's 
in  trouble  I'll  go  to  her  at  once." 

The  old  man,  at  this,  once  more  delivered  him 
self.  "She  won't  be  in  trouble — any  more  than 
I  am.  But  tell  her — tell  her !" 

"Yes,  sir"-— Gray  had  again  to  wait. 

But  Miss  Goodenough  now  would  have  no 
more  of  it.  "Tell  her  that  wire  about  as  fresh 
as  we  can  live!" — the  wave  of  her  hand  accom 
panying  which  Gray  could  take  at  last  for  his 
dismissal. 


122 


Ill 

IT  was  nevertheless  not  at  once  that  he  sought 
out  the  way  to  find  his  old  friend;  other  ques 
tions  than  that  of  at  once  seeing  her  hummed 
for  the  next  half-hour  about  his  ears — an  interval 
spent  by  him  in  still  further  contemplative  mo 
tion  within  his  uncle's  grounds.  He  strolled  and 
stopped  again  and  stared  before  him  without  see 
ing;  he  came  and  went  and  sat  down  on  benches 
and  low  rocky  ledges  only  to  get  up  and  pace 
afresh;  he  lighted  cigarettes  but  to  smoke  them 
a  quarter  out  and  then  chuck  them  away  to 
light  others.  He  said  to  himself  that  he  was 
enormously  agitated,  agitated  as  never  in  his 
life  before,  but  that,  strangely  enough,  he  dis 
liked  that  condition  far  less  than  the  menace  of 
it  would  have  made  him  suppose.  He  didn't, 
however,  like  it  enough  to  say  to  himself  "This 
is  happiness!" — as  could  scarcely  have  failed  if 
the  kind  of  effect  on  his  nerves  had  really  con 
sorted  with  the  kind  of  advantage  that  he  was 
to  understand  his  interview  with  his  uncle  to 
have  promised  him;  so  far,  that  is,  as  he  was 
yet  to  understand  anything.  His  after-sense  of 
the  scene  expanded  rather  than  settled,  became 
an  impression  of  one  of  those  great  insistent 

123 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

bounties  that  are  not  of  this  troubled  world;  the 
anomaly  expressing  itself  in  such  beauty  and 
dignity,  with  all  its  elements  conspiring  together, 
as  would  have  done  honour  to  a  great  page  of 
literary,  of  musical  or  pictorial  art.  The  huge 
grace  of  the  matter  ought  somehow  to  have  left 
him  simply  captivated — so  at  least,  all  wonder 
ing,  he  hung  about  there  to  reflect;  but  excess 
of  harmony  might  apparently  work  like  excess 
of  discord,  might  practically  be  a  negation  of 
the  idea  of  the  quiet  life.  Ignoble  quiet  he  had 
never  asked  for — this  he  could  now  with  assur 
ance  remember;  but  something  in  the  pitch  of 
his  uncle's  guarantee  of  big  things,  whatever  they 
were,  which  should  at  the  same  time  be  pleasant 
things,  seemed  to  make  him  an  accomplice  in 
some  boundless  presumption.  In  what  light  had 
he  ever  seen  himself  that  made  it  proper  the 
pleasant  should  be  so  big  for  him  or  the  big  so 
pleasant?  Suddenly,  as  he  looked  at  his  watch 
and  saw  how  the  time  had  passed — time  already, 
didn't  it  seem,  of  his  rather  standing  off  and 
quaking? — it  occurred  to  him  that  the  last  thing 
he  had  proposed  to  himself  in  the  whole  connec 
tion  was  to  be  either  publicly  or  privately  afraid; 
in  the  act  of  noting  which  he  became  aware  again 
of  Miss  Mumby,  who,  having  come  out  of  the 
house  apparently  to  approach  him,  was  now  at 
no  great  distance.  She  rose  before  him  the  next 
minute  as  in  fuller  possession  than  ever  of  his 

124 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

fate,  and  yet  with  no  accretion  of  reserve  in  her 
own  pleasure  at  this. 

"What  I  want  you  to  do  is  just  to  go  over  to 
Miss  Gaw." 

"It's  just  what  /  should  like,  thank  you — and 
perhaps  you'll  be  so  good  as  to  show  me  the  way." 
He  wasn't  quite  succeeding  in  not  being  afraid 
— that  a  moment  later  came  to  him;  since  if  this 
extraordinary  woman  was  in  touch  with  his 
destiny  what  did  such  words  on  his  own  part 
represent  but  the  impulse  to  cling  to  her  and,  as 
who  should  say,  keep  on  her  right  side  ?  His 
uncle  had  spoken  to  him  of  Rosanna  as  protective 
— and  what  better  warrant  for  such  a  truth  than 
that  here  was  he  thankful  on  the  spot  even  for 
the  countenance  of  a  person  speaking  apparently 
in  her  name  ?  All  of  which  was  queer  enough, 
verily — since  it  came  to  the  sense  of  his  clutch 
ing  for  immediate  light,  through  the  now  gathered 
dusk,  at  the  surge  of  guiding  petticoats,  the 
charity  of  women  more  or  less  strange.  Miss 
Mumby  at  once  took  charge  of  him,  and  he  learnt 
more  things  still  before  they  had  proceeded  far. 
One  of  these  truths,  though  doubtless  the  most 
superficial,  was  that  Miss  Gaw  proposed  he 
should  dine  with  her  just  as  he  was — he  himself 
recognising  that  with  her  father  suddenly  and  to 
all  appearance  gravely  ill  it  was  no  time  for  vain 
forms.  Wasn't  the  rather  odd  thing,  none  the 
less,  that  the  crisis  should  have  suggested  her 

125 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

desiring  company  ? — being  as  it  was  so  acute 
that  the  doctor,  Doctor  Hatch  himself,  would 
even  now  have  arrived  with  a  nurse,  both  of 
which  pair  of  ears  Miss  Mumby  required  for  her 
report  of  those  symptoms  in  their  new  patient 
that  had  appealed  to  her  practised  eye  an  hour 
before.  Interesting  enough  withal  was  her  ex 
planation  to  Gray  of  what  she  had  noted  on 
Mr.  Gaw's  part  as  a  consequence  of  her  joining 
them  at  that  moment  under  Mr.  Betterman's 
roof;  all  the  more  that  he  himself  had  then  won 
dered  and  surmised — struck  as  he  was  with  the 
effect  on  the  poor  man's  nerves  of  their  visitor's 
announcement  that  her  prime  patient  had 
brightened.  Mr.  Gaw  but  too  truly,  our  young 
man  now  learned,  had  taken  that  news  ill — as, 
given  the  state  of  his  heart,  any  strong  shock 
might  determine  a  bad  aggravation.  Such  a 
shock  Miss  Mumby  had,  to  her  lively  regret, 
administered,  though  she  called  Gray's  attention 
to  the  prompt  and  intelligent  action  of  her  re 
morse.  Feeling  at  once  responsible  she  had  taken 
their  extraordinary  little  subject  in  charge — 
with  every  care  indeed  not  to  alarm  him;  to  the 
point  that,  on  his  absolute  refusal  to  let  her  go 
home  with  him  and  his  arresting  a  hack,  on  the 
public  road,  which  happened  to  come  into  view 
empty,  the  two  had  entered  the  vehicle  and  she 
had  not  lost  sight  of  him  till,  his  earnest  call  upon 
his  daughter  at  Mrs.  Bradham's  achieved,  he 

126 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

had  been  in  effect  restored  to  his  own  house. 
His  daughter,  who  lived  with  her  eyes  on  his 
liability  to  lapses,  was  now  watching  with  him, 
and  was  well  aware,  Miss  Mumby  averred,  of 
what  the  crisis  might  mean;  as  to  whose  own 
due  presence  of  mind  in  the  connection  indeed 
how  could  there  be  better  proof  than  this  present 
lucidity  of  her  appeal  to  Mr.  Betterman's  guest 
on  such  a  matter  as  her  prompt  thought  for  spar 
ing  him  delay  ? 

"If  she  didn't  want  you  to  wait  to  dress,  it 
can  only  be,  I  guess,  to  make  sure  of  seeing  you 
before  anything  happens,"  his  guide  was  at  no 
loss  to  remark;  "and  if  she  can  mention  dinner 
while  the  old  gentleman  is — well,  as  he  is — it 
shows  she's  not  too  beside  herself  to  feel  that 
you'll  at  any  rate  want  yours." 

"Oh  for  mercy's  sake  don't  talk  of  dinner!" 
Gray  pulled  up  under  the  influence  of  these  reve 
lations  quite  impatiently  to  request.  "That's  not 
what  I'm  most  thinking  of,  I  beg  you  to  believe, 
in  the  midst  of  such  prodigies  and  portents." 
They  had  crossed  the  small  stretch  of  road  which 
separated  Mr.  Betterman's  gate  from  that  of  the 
residence  they  were  addressed  to;  and  now, 
within  the  grounds  of  this  latter,  which  loomed 
there,  through  vague  boskages,  with  an  effect  of 
windows  numerously  and  precipitately  lighted, 
the  forces  of  our  young  friend's  consciousness 
were  all  in  vibration  at  once.  "My  wondrous 

127 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

uncle,  I  don't  mind  telling  you,  since  you're  so 
kind  to  me,  has  given  me  more  extraordinary 
things  to  think  of  than  I  see  myself  prepared  in 
any  way  to  do  justice  to;  and  if  I'm  further  to 
understand  you  that  we  have  between  us,  you 
and  I,  destroyed  this  valuable  life,  I  leave  you  to 
judge  whether  what  we  may  have  to  face  in  con 
sequence  finds  me  eager." 

"How  do  you  know  it's  such  a  valuable  life?" 
Miss  Mumby  surprisingly  rejoined;  sinking  that 
question,  however,  in  a  livelier  interest,  before 
his  surprise  could  express  itself.  "If  she  has 
sent  me  for  you  it's  because  she  knows  what 
she's  about,  and  because  I  also  know  what  I  am 
— so  that,  wanting  you  myself  so  much  to  come, 
I  guess  I'd  have  gone  over  for  you  on  my  own 
responsibility.  Why,  Mr.  Fielder,  your  place  is 
right  here  by  her  at  such  a  time  as  this,  and  if 
you  don't  already  realise  it  I'm  very  glad  I've 
helped  you." 

Such  was  the  consecration  winder  which,  but 
a  few  minutes  later,  Gray  found  himself  turning 
about  in  the  lamp-lit  saloon  of  the  Gaws  very 
much  as  he  had  a  few  hours  before  revolved  at 
the  other  house.  Miss  Mumby  had  introduced 
him  into  this  apartment  straight  from  the  terrace 
to  which,  in  the  warm  air,  a  long  window  or  two 
stood  open,  and  then  had  left  him  with  the  as 
surance  that  matters  upstairs  would  now  be  in 
shape  for  their  friend  to  join  him  at  once.  It 

128 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

was  perhaps  because  he  had  rather  inevitably 
expected  matters  upstairs — and  this  in  spite  of 
his  late  companion's  warning  word — to  assault 
him  in  some  fulness  with  Miss  Gaw's  appearance 
at  the  door,  that  a  certain  failure  of  any  such 
effect  when  she  did  appear  had  for  him  a  force, 
even  if  it  was  hardly  yet  to  be  called  a  sense, 
beyond  any  air  of  her  advancing  on  the  tide  of 
pain.  He  fairly  took  in,  face  to  face  with  her, 
that  what  she  first  called  for  was  no  rattle  of 
sound,  however  considerately  pitched,  about  the 
question  of  her  own  fear;  she  had  pulled  no  long 
face,  she  cared  for  no  dismal  deference:  she  but 
stood  there,  after  she  had  closed  the  door  with 
a  backward  push  that  took  no  account,  in  the 
hushed  house,  of  some  possible  resonance,  she 
but  stood  there  smiling  in  her  mild  extravagance 
of  majesty,  smiling  and  smiling  as  he  had  seen 
women  do  as  a  preface  to  bursting  into  tears. 
He  was  to  remember  afterwards  how  he  had  felt 
for  an  instant  that  whatever  he  said  or  did  would 
deprive  her  of  resistance  to  an  inward  pressure 
which  was  growing  as  by  the  sight  of  him,  but 
that  she  would  thus  break  down  much  more 
under  the  crowned  than  under  the  menaced 
moment — thanks  to  which  appearance  what 
could  be  stranger  than  his  inviting  her  to  clap 
her  hands  ?  Still  again  was  he  later  to  recall 
that  these  hands  had  been  the  moment  after 
held  in  his  own  while  he  knew  himself  smiling 

129 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

too  and  saying:  "Well,  well,  well,  what  wonders 
and  what  splendours!"  and  seeing  that  though 
there  was  even  more  of  her  in  presence  than  he 
had  reckoned  there  was  somehow  less  of  her  in 
time;  as  if  she  had  at  once  grown  and  grown  and 
grown,  grown  in  all  sorts  of  ways  save  the  most 
natural  one  of  growing  visibly  older.  Such  an 
oddity  as  that  made  her  another  person  a  good 
deal  more  than  her  show  of  not  having  left  him 
behind  by  any  break  with  their  common  youth 
could  keep  her  the  same. 

These  perceptions  took  of  course  but  seconds, 
with  yet  another  on  their  heels,  to  the  effect  that 
she  had  already  seen  him,  and  seen  him  to  some 
fine  sense  of  pleasure,  as  himself  enormously 
different — arriving  at  that  clearness  before  they 
had  done  more  than  thus  waver  between  the 
"fun,"  all  so  natural,  of  their  meeting  as  the 
frankest  of  friends  and  the  quite  other  intelligence 
of  their  being  parties  to  a  crisis.  It  was  to  re 
main  on  record  for  him  too,  and  however  over- 
scored,  that  their  crisis,  surging  up  for  three  or 
four  minutes  by  its  essential  force,  suffered  them 
to  stand  there,  with  irrelevant  words  and  mo 
tions,  very  much  as  if  it  were  all  theirs  alone  and 
nobody's  else,  nobody's  more  important,  on 
either  side,  than  they  were,  and  so  take  a  brush 
from  the  wing  of  personal  romance.  He  let  her 
hands  go,  and  then,  if  he  wasn't  mistaken,  held 
them  afresh  a  moment  in  repeated  celebration, 

130 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

he  exchanged  with  her  the  commonest  remarks 
and  the  flattest  and  the  easiest,  so  long  as  it  wasn't 
speaking  but  seeing,  and  seeing  more  and  more, 
that  mattered:  they  literally  talked  of  his  jour 
ney  and  his  arrival  and  of  whether  he  had  had  a 
good  voyage  and  wasn't  tired;  they  said  "You 
sit  here,  won't  you?"  and  "Shan't  you  be  better 
there  ?"— they  said  "Oh  I'm  all  right!"  and 
"Fancy  it's  happening  after  all  like  this!"  be 
fore  there  even  faintly  quavered  the  call  of  a 
deeper  note.  This  was  really  because  the  deep 
one,  from  minute  to  minute,  was  that  acute  hush 
of  her  so  clearly  finding  him  not  a  bit  what  she 
might  have  built  up.  He  had  grown  and  grown 
just  as  she  had,  certainly;  only  here  he  was  for 
her  clothed  in  the  right  interest  of  it,  not  bare 
of  that  grace  as  he  fancied  her  guessing  herself 
in  his  eyes,  and  with  the  conviction  sharply  thrust 
upon  him,  beyond  any  humour  he  might  have 
cultivated,  that  he  was  going  to  be  so  right  for 
her  and  so  predetermined,  whatever  he  did  and 
however  he  should  react  there  under  conditions 
incalculable,  that  this  would  perhaps  more  over 
load  his  consciousness  than  ease  it.  It  could 
have  been  further  taken  for  strange,  had  there 
been  somebody  so  to  note  it,  that  even  when 
their  first  vaguenesses  dropped  what  she  really 
at  once  made  easiest  for  him  was  to  tell  her  that 
the  wonderful  thing  had  come  to  pass,  the  thing 
she  had  whisked  him  over  for — he  put  it  to  her 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

that  way;  that  it  had  taken  place  in  conditions 
too  exquisite  to  be  believed,  and  that  under  the 
bewilderment  produced  by  these  she  must  re 
gard  him  as  still  staggering. 

"Then  it's  done,  then  it's  done — as  I  knew  it 
would  be  if  he  could  but  see  you."  Flushed,  but 
with  her  large  fan  held  up  so  that  scarce  more 
than  her  eyes,  their  lids  drawn  together  in  the 
same  nearsighted  way  he  remembered,  presented 
themselves  over  it,  she  fairly  hunched  her  high 
shoulders  higher  for  emphasis  of  her  success.  The 
more  it  might  have  embarrassed  her  to  consider 
him  without  reserve  the  more  she  had  this  relief, 
as  he  took  it,  of  her  natural,  her  helpful  blink 
ing;  so  that  what  it  came  to  really  for  her  general 
advantage  was  that  the  fine  closing  of  the  eyes, 
the  fine  thing  in  her  big  face,  but  expressed  effec 
tive  scrutiny.  Below  her  in  stature — as  various 
other  men,  for  that  matter,  couldn't  but  be — he 
hardly  came  higher  than  her  ear;  and  he  for  the 
shade  of  an  instant  struck  himself  as  a  small 
boy,  literally  not  of  man's  estate,  reporting,  under 
some  research,  just  to  the  amplest  of  mothers. 
He  had  reported  to  Mr.  Betterman,  so  far  as 
intent  candour  in  him  hadn't  found  itself  dis 
traught,  and  for  the  half  hour  had  somehow  af 
fronted  the  immeasurable;  but  that  didn't  at 
all  prevent  his  now  quick  sense  of  his  never  in 
his  life  having  been  so  watched  and  waited  upon 
by  the  uncharted  infinite,  or  so  subject  to  its 

132 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

operation — since  infinities,  at  the  rate  he  was 
sinking  in,  could  apparently  operate,  and  do  it 
too  without  growing  smaller  for  the  purpose. 
He  cast  about,  not  at  all  upright  on  the  small 
pink  satin  sofa  to  which  he  had  unconsciously 
dropped;  it  was  for  him  clearly  to  grow  bigger, 
as  everything  about  expressively  smiled,  smiled 
absolutely  through  the  shadow  cast  by  doctors 
and  nurses  again,  in  suggestion  of;  which,  nat 
urally,  was  what  one  would  always  want  to  do — 
but  which  any  failure  of,  he  after  certain  mo 
ments  perfectly  felt,  wouldn't  convert  to  the 
least  difference  for  this  friend.  How  could  that 
have  been  more  established  than  by  her  neglect 
of  his  having  presently  said,  out  of  his  particular 
need,  that  he  would  do  anything  in  reason  that 
was  asked  of  him,  but  that  he  fairly  ached  with 
the  desire  to  understand—  -  ?  She  blinked  upon 
his  ache  to  her  own  sufficiency,  no  doubt;  but 
no  further  balm  dropped  upon  it  for  the  moment 
than  by  her  appearing  to  brood  with  still  deeper 
assurance,  in  her  place  and  her  posture,  on  the 
beauty  of  the  accomplished  fact,  the  fact  of  her 
performed  purpose  and  her  freedom  now  but  to 
take  care — yes,  herself  take  care — for  what  would 
come  of  it.  She  might  understand  that  he  didn't 
— all  the  way  as  yet;  but  nothing  could  be  more 
in  the  line  of  the  mild  and  mighty  mother  than 
her  treating  that  as  a  trifle.  It  attenuated  a 
little  perhaps,  it  just  let  light  into  the  dark  warmth 

133 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

of  her  spreading  possession  of  what  she  had  done, 
that  when  he  had  said,  as  a  thing  already  ten 
times  on  his  lips  and  now  quite  having  to  come 
out,  "I  feel  some  big  mistake  about  me  somehow 
at  work,  and  want  to  stop  it  in  time!"  she  met 
this  with  the  almost  rude  decision  of  "There's 
nothing  you  can  stop  now,  Graham,  for  your 
fate,  or  our  situation,  has  the  gained  momentum 
of  a  rush  that  began  ever  so  far  away  and  that 
has  been  growing  and  growing.  It  would  be  too 
late  even  if  we  wanted  to — and  you  can  judge 
for  yourself  how  little  that's  my  wish.  So  here 
we  are,  you  see,  to  make  the  best  of  it." 

"When  you  talk  of  my  'fate,'"  he  allowed 
himself  almost  the  amusement  of  answering,  "y°u 
freeze  the  current  of  my  blood;  but  when  you 
say  'our  situation/  and  that  we're  in  it  together, 
that's  a  little  better,  and  I  assure  you  that  I 
shall  not  for  a  moment  stay  in  anything,  what 
ever  it  may  be,  in  which  you're  not  close  beside 
me.  So  there  you  are  at  any  rate— and  I  matter 
at  least  as  much  as  this,  whatever  the  mistake: 
that  I  have  hold  of  you  as  tight  as  ever  you've 
been  held  in  your  life,  and  that,  whatever  and 
whatever  the  mistake,  you've  got  to  see  me 
through." 

"Well,  I  took  my  responsibility  years  ago,  and 
things  came  of  it" — so  she  made  reply;  "and  the 
other  day  I  took  this  other,  and  now  this  has 
come  of  it,  and  that  was  what  I  wanted,  and 

134 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

wasn't  afraid  of,  and  am  not  afraid  of  now — like 
the  fears  that  came  to  me  after  the  Dresden 
time."  No  more  direct  than  that  was  her  answer 
to  his  protest,  and  what  she  subjoined  still  took 
as  little  account  of  it.  "I  rather  lost  them,  those 
old  fears — little  by  little;  but  one  of  the  things 
I  most  wanted  the  other  day  was  to  see  whether 
before  you  here  they  wouldn't  wholly  die  down. 
They're  over,  they're  over,"  she  repeated;  "I 
knew  three  minutes  of  you  would  do  it — and  not 
a  ghost  of  them  remains." 

"I  can't  be  anything  but  glad  that  you 
shouldn't  have  fears — and  it's  horrid  to  me  to 
learn,  I  assure  you,"  he  said,  "that  I've  ever 
been  the  occasion  of  any.  But  the  extent  to 
which,"  he  then  frankly  laughed,  '  'three  min 
utes'  of  me  seems  to  be  enough  for  people !" 

He  left  it  there,  just  throwing  up  his  arms, 
passive  again  as  he  had  accepted  his  having  to 
be  in  the  other  place;  but  conscious  more  and 
more  of  the  anomaly  of  her  showing  so  markedly 
at  such  an  hour  a  preoccupation,  and  of  the  very 
intensest,  that  should  not  have  her  father  for  its 
subject.  Nothing  could  have  more  represented 
this  than  her  abruptly  saying  to  him,  without 
recognition  of  his  point  just  made,  so  far  as  it 
might  have  been  a  point:  "If  your  impression 
of  your  uncle,  and  of  his  looking  so  fine  and  being 
so  able  to  talk  to  you,  makes  you  think  he  has 
any  power  really  to  pick  up  or  to  last,  I  want 

135 


THE   IVORY  TOWER 

you  to  know  that  you're  wholly  mistaken.  It 
has  kept  him  up/'  she  went  on,  "and  the  effect 
may  continue  a  day  or  two  more — it  will,  in  fact, 
till  certain  things  are  done.  But  then  the  flicker 
will  have  dropped — for  he  won't  want  it  not  to. 
He'll  feel  all  right.  The  extraordinary  inspira 
tion,  the  borrowed  force,  will  have  spent  itself— 
it  will  die  down  and  go  out,  but  with  no  pain. 
There  has  been  at  no  time  much  of  that,"  she 
said,  "and  now  I'm  positively  assured  there's 
none.  It  can't  come  back — nothing  can  but  the 
weakness.  It's  too  lovely,"  she  remarkably 
added — "so  there  indeed  and  indeed  we  are." 

To  take  in  these  words  was  to  be,  after  a  fashion 
he  couldn't  have  expressed,  on  a  basis  of  reality 
with  her  the  very  rarest  and  queerest;  so  that, 
bristling  as  it  did  with  penetrative  points,  her 
speech  left  him  scarce  knowing  for  the  instant 
which  penetrated  furthest.  That  she  made  no 
more  of  anything  he  himself  said  than  if  she  had 
just  sniffed  it  as  a  pale  pink  rose  and  then  tossed 
it  into  the  heap  of  his  other  sweet  futilities,  such 
another  heap  as  had  seemed  to  grow  up  for  him 
in  his  uncle's  room,  this  might  have  pressed 
sharpest  hadn't  something  else,  not  wholly  over- 
scored  by  what  followed,  perhaps  pricked  his 
consciousness  most.  'It,'  you  say,  has  kept 
him  up?  May  I  ask  you  what  'it'  then  may  so 
wonderfully  have  been  ?" 

She  had  no  more  objection  to  say  than  she 

136 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

apparently  had  difficulty.  "Why,  his  having 
let  me  get  at  him.  That  was  to  make  the  whole 
difference." 

It  was  somehow  as  much  in  the  note  of  their 
reality  as  anything  could  well  be;  which  was 
perhaps  why  he  could  but  respond  with  "Oh 
I  see!"  and  remain  lolling  a  little  with  a  sense 
of  flatness — a  flatness  moreover  exclusively  his 
own. 

So  without  flatness  of  her  own  she  didn't  even 
mind  his;  something  in  her  brushed  quite  above 
it  while  she  observed  next,  as  if  it  were  the  most 
important  thing  that  now  occurred  to  her:  "That 
of  course  was  my  poor  father's  mistake."  And 
then  as  Gray  but  stared:  "I  mean  the  idea  that 
he  can  pick  up." 

"It's  your  father's  mistake  that  he  can ?" 

She  met  it  as  if  really  a  shade  bewildered  at  his 
own  misconception;  she  was  literally  so  far  off 
from  any  vision  of  her  parent  in  himself,  a  phi 
losopher  might  have  said,  that  it  took  her  an 
instant  to  do  the  question  justice.  "Oh  no — I 
mean  that  your  uncle  can.  It  was  your  own  re 
port  of  that  to  him,  with  Miss  Mumby  backing 
you,  that  put  things  in  the  bad  light  to  him." 

"So  bad  a  light  that  Mr.  Gaw  is  in  danger  by 
it?"  This  was  catching  on  of  a  truth  to  realities 
— and  most  of  all  to  the  one  he  had  most  to  face. 
"I've  been  then  at  the  bottom  of  that?" 

He  was  to  wonder  afterwards  if  she  had  very 
137 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

actually  gone  so  far  as  to  let  slip  a  dim  smile  for 
the  intensity  of  his  candour  on  this  point,  or 
whether  her  so  striking  freedom  from  intensity 
in  the  general  connection  had  but  suggested  to 
him  one  of  the  images  that  were  most  in  opposi 
tion.  Her  answer  at  any  rate  couldn't  have  had 
more  of  the  eminence  of  her  plainness.  "That 
you  yourself,  after  your  uncertainties,  should 
have  found  Mr.  Betterman  surprising  was  per 
fectly  natural — and  how  indeed  could  you  have 
dreamed  that  father  so  wanted  him  to  die?" 
And  then  as  Gray,  affected  by  the  extreme  salience 
of  this  link  in  the  chain  of  her  logic,  threw  up  his 
head  a  little  for  the  catching  of  his  breath,  her 
supreme  lucidity,  and  which  was  lucidity  all  in 
his  interest,  further  shone  out.  "Father  is  in 
deed  ill.  He  has  had  these  bad  times  before,  but 
nothing  quite  of  the  present  gravity.  He  has 
been  in  a  critical  state  for  months,  but  one  thing 
has  kept  him  alive — the  wish  to  see  your  uncle 
so  far  on  his  way  that  there  could  be  no  doubt. 
It  was  the  appearance  of  doubt  so  suddenly  this 
afternoon  that  gave  him  the  shock."  She  con 
tinued  to  explain  the  case  without  prejudice. 
"To  take  it  there  from  you  for  possible  that 
Mr.  Bettenman  might  revive  and  that  he  should 
have  in  his  own  so  unsteady  condition  to  wait 
was  simply  what  father  couldn't  stand." 

"So  that  I  just  dealt  the  blow ?" 

But  it  was  as  if  she  cared  too  little  even  to  try 

138 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

to  make  that  right.  "He  doesn't  want,  you  see, 
to  live  after." 

"After  having  found  he  is  mistaken?" 

She  had  a  faint  impatience.  "He  isn't  of 
course  really — since  what  I  told  you  of  your 
uncle  is  true.  And  he  knows  that  now,  having 
my  word  for  it." 

Gray  couldn't  be  clear  enough  about  her  clear 
ness.  "Your  word  for  it  that  my  uncle  has  re 
vived  but  for  the  moment  ? " 

"Absolutely.  Wasn't  my  giving  him  that," 
Rosanna  asked,  "a  charming  filial  touch?" 

This  was  tremendously  much  again  to  take  in, 
but  Gray's  capacity  grew.  "Promising  him,  you 
mean,  for  his  benefit,  that  my  uncle  shan't  last?" 

The  size  of  it  on  his  lips  might  fairly,  during 
the  instant  she  looked  at  him,  have  been  giving 
her  pleasure.  "Yes,  making  it  a  bribe  to  father's 
patience." 

"Then  why  doesn't  the  bribe  act?" 

"Because  it  comes  too  late.  It  was  amazing," 
she  pursued,  "that,  feeling  as  he  did,  he  could 
take  that  drive  to  the  Bradhams' — and  Miss 
Mumby  was  right  in  perfectly  understanding 
that.  The  harm  was  already  done — and  there 


it  is." 


She  had  truly  for  the  whole  reference  the  most 
astounding  tones.  "You  literally  mean  then," 
said  Gray,  "that  while  you  sit  here  with  me  he's 
dying — dying  of  my  want  of  sense  ? " 

139 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

"You've  no  want  of  sense" — she  spoke  as  if 
this  were  the  point  really  involved.  "You've 
a  sense  the  most  exquisite — and  surely  you  had 
best  take  in  soon  rather  than  late,"  she  went  on, 
"how  you'll  never  be  free  not  to  have  on  every 
occasion  of  life  to  reckon  with  it  and  pay  for  it." 

"Oh  I  say!"  was  all  the  wit  with  which  he 
could  at  once  meet  this  charge;  but  she  had 
risen  as  she  spoke  and,  with  a  remark  about  there 
being  another  matter,  had  moved  off  to  a  piece 
of  furniture  at  a  distance  where  she  appeared 
to  take  something  from  a  drawer  unlocked  with 
a  sharp  snap  for  the  purpose.  When  she  returned 
to  him  she  had  this  object  in  her  hand,  and  Gray 
recognised  in  it  an  oblong  envelope,  addressed, 
largely  sealed  in  black,  and  seeming  to  contain 
a  voluminous  letter.  She  kept  it  while  he  noted 
that  the  seal  was  intact,  and  she  then  reverted 
not  to  the  discomfiture  she  had  last  produced  in 
him  but  to  his  rueful  reference  of  a  minute  be 
fore  that. 

"He's  not  dying  of  anything  you  said  or  did, 
or  of  anyone's  act  or  words.  He's  just  dying  of 
twenty  millions." 

"Twenty  millions?"  There  was  a  kind  of 
enormity  in  her  very  absence  of  pomp,  and  Gray 
felt  as  if  he  had  dropped  of  a  sudden,  from  his 
height  of  simplicity,  far  down  into  a  familiar 
relation  to  quantities  inconceivable — out  of  which 
depths  he  fairly  blew  and  splashed  to  emerge, 

140 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

the  familiar  relation,  of  all  things  in  the  world, 
being  so  strange  a  one.  "  That's  what  you  mean 
here  when  you  talk  of  money  ?" 

"That's  what  we  mean,"  said  Rosanna,  "when 
we  talk  of  anything  at  all — for  of  what  else  but 
money  do  we  ever  talk  ?  He's  dying,  at  any 
rate,"  she  explained,  "of  his  having  wished  to 
have  to  do  with  it  on  that  sort  of  scale.  Having 
to  do  with  it  consists,  you  know,  of  the  things 
you  do  for  it — which  are  mostly  very  awful;  and 
there  are  all  kinds  of  consequences  that  they 
eventually  have.  You  pay  by  these  consequences 
for  what  you  have  done,  and  my  father  has  been 
for  a  long  time  paying."  Then  she  added  as  if 
of  a  sudden  to  summarise  and  dismiss  the  whole 
ugly  truth:  "The  effect  has  been  to  dry  up  his 
life."  Her  eyes,  with  this,  reached  away  for  the 
first  time  as  in  search  of  something  not  at  all 
before  her,  and  it  was  on  the  perfunctory  note 
that  she  had  the  next  instant  concluded.  "There's 
nothing  at  last  left  for  him  to  pay  with" 

For  Gray  at  least,  whatever  initiations  he  had 
missed,  she  couldn't  keep  down  the  interest. 
"Mr.  Gaw  then  will  leave  twenty  millions ?" 

"He  has  already  left  them — in  the  sense  of 
having  made  his  will;  as  your  uncle,  equally  to 
my  knowledge,  has  already  made  his."  Some 
thing  visibly  had  occurred  to  her,  and  in  connec 
tion,  it  might  seem,  with  the  packet  she  had 
taken  from  her  drawer.  She  looked  about— 

141 


THE   IVORY  TOWER 

there  being  within  the  scene,  which  was  somehow 
at  once  blank  and  replete,  sundry  small  scattered 
objects  of  an  expensive  negligibility;  not  one  of 
which,  till  now,  he  could  guess,  had  struck  her 
as  a  thing  of  human  application.  Human  ap 
plication  had  sprung  up,  the  idea  of  selection  at 
once  following,  and  she  unmistakeably  but  won 
dered  what  would  be  best  for  her  use  while  she 
completed  the  statement  on  which  she  had  so 
strikingly  embarked.  "He  has  left  me  his  whole 
fortune."  Then  holding  up  an  article  of  which 
she  had  immediately  afterwards,  with  decision, 
proceeded  to  possess  herself,  "Is  that  a  thing 
you  could  at  all  bear?"  she  irrelevantly  asked. 
She  had  caught  sight,  in  her  embarrassed  way, 
of  something  apparently  adapted  to  her  unex 
plained  end,  and  had  left  him  afresh  to  assure 
herself  of  its  identity,  taking  up  from  a  table 
at  first,  however,  a  box  in  Japanese  lacquer  only 
to  lay  it  down  unsatisfied.  She  had  circled  thus 
at  a  distance  for  a  time,  allowing  him  now 
his  free  contemplation;  she  had  tried  in  succes 
sion,  holding  them  close  to  her  eyes,  several  em 
bossed  or  embroidered  superfluities,  a  blotting- 
book  covered  with  knobs  of  malachite,  a  silver 
box,  flat,  largely  circular  and  finely  fretted,  a 
gold  cigar  case  of  absurd  dimensions,  of  which 
she  played  for  a  moment  the  hinged  lid.  Such 
was  the  object  on  which  she  puzzlingly  chal 
lenged  him. 

142 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

"I  could  bear  it  perhaps  better  if  I  ever  used 
cigars." 

"You  don't  smoke?"  she  almost  wailed. 

"Never  cigars.  Sometimes  pipes — but  mostly, 
thank  goodness,  cigarettes." 

"Thank  the  powers  then  indeed!" — and,  the 
golden  case  restored  to  the  table,  where  she  had 
also  a  moment  before  laid  her  prepared  missive, 
she  went  straight  to  a  corner  of  the  mantel-shelf, 
hesitations  dropping  from  her,  and,  opening  there 
a  plainer  receptacle  than  any  she  had  yet  touched, 
turned  the  next  instant  with  a  brace  of  cigarettes 
picked  out  and  an  accent  she  had  not  yet  used. 
"You  are  a  blessing,  Gray — Fm  nowhere  without 
one !"  There  were  matches  at  hand,  and  she  had 
struck  a  light  and  applied  it,  at  his  lips,  to  the 
cigarette  passively  received  by  him,  afterwards 
touching  her  own  with  it,  almost  before  he  could 
wonder  again  at  the  oddity  of  their  transition. 
Their  light  smoke  curled  while  she  went  back  to 
her  table;  it  quickened  for  him  with  each  puff 
the  marvel  of  a  domestic  altar  graced  at  such  a 
moment  by  the  play  of  that  particular  flame. 
Almost,  to  his  fine  vision,  it  made  Rosanna  dif 
ferent — for  wasn't  there  at  once  a  gained  ease  in 
the  tone  with  which,  her  sealed  letter  still  left 
lying  on  the  table,  she  returned  to  that  conve 
nience  for  the  pocket  of  the  rich  person  of  which 
she  had  clicked  and  re-clicked  the  cover?  What 
strange  things,  Gray  thought,  rich  persons  had  ! 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

—and  what  strange  things  they  did,  he  might 
mentally  even  have  added,  when  she  developed 
in  a  way  that  mystified  him  but  the  more:  "I 
don't  mean  for  your  cigars,  since  you  don't  use 
them;  but  I  want  you  to  have  from  my  hand 
something  in  which  to  keep,  with  all  due  con 
sideration,  a  form  of  tribute  that  has  been  these 
last  forty-eight  hours  awaiting  you  here,  and 
which,  it  occurs  to  me,  would  just  slide  into  this 
preposterous  piece  of  furniture  and  nestle  there 
till  you  may  seem  to  feel  you  want  it."  She  pro 
ceeded  to  recover  the  packet  and  slide  it  into 
the  case,  the  shape  of  which,  on  a  larger  scale, 
just  corresponded  with  its  own,  and  then,  once 
more  making  the  lid  catch,  shook  container  and 
contents  as  sharply  as  she  might  have  shaken  a 
bottle  of  medicine.  "So — there  it  is;  I  some 
how  don't  want  just  to  thrust  at  you  the  letter 
itself." 

"But  may  I  be  told  what  the  letter  itself  is  ?" 
asked  Gray,  who  had  followed  these  movements 
with  interest. 

"Why  of  course — didn't  I  mention  ?  Here 
are  safely  stowed,"  she  said,  her  gesture  causing 
the  smooth  protective  surfaces  to  twinkle  more 
brightly  before  him,  "the  very  last  lines  (and 
many  there  appear  to  be  of  them  !)  that,  if  I  am 
not  mistaken,  my  father's  hand  will  have  traced. 
He  wrote  them,  in  your  interest,  as  he  considers, 
when  he  heard  of  your  arrival  in  New  York,  and, 

144 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

having  sealed  and  directed  them,  gave  them  to 
me  yesterday  to  take  care  of  and  deliver  to  you. 
I  put  them  away  for  the  purpose,  and  an  hour 
ago,  during  our  drive  back  from  Mrs.  Bradham's, 
he  reminded  me  of  my  charge.  Before  asking 
Miss  Mumb}'  to  tell  you  I  should  like  to  see  you 
I  transferred  the  letter  from  its  place  of  safety 
in  my  room  to  the  cabinet  from  which,  for  your 
benefit,  I  a  moment  ago  took  it.  I  carefully 
comply,  as  you  see,  with  my  father's  request. 
I  know  nothing  whatever  of  what  he  has  written 
you,  and  only  want  you  to  have  his  words.  But 
I  want  also,"  she  pursued,  "to  make  just  this 
little  affair  of  them.  I  want" — and  she  bent  her 
eyes  on  the  queer  costliness,  rubbing  it  with  her 
pocket-handkerchief — "to  do  what  the  Lord  Mayor 
of  London  does,  doesn't  he  ?  when  he  offers  the 
Freedom  of  the  City;  present  them  in  a  precious 
casket  in  which  they  may  always  abide.  I  want 
in  short,"  she  wound  up,  "to  put  them,  for  your 
use,  beautifully  away." 

Gray  went  from  wonder  to  wonder.  "It  isn't 
then  a  thing  you  judge  I  should  open  at 
once?" 

"I  don't  care  whether  you  never  open  it  in 
your  life.  But  you  don't,  I  can  see,  like  that 
vulgar  thing!"  With  which  having  opened  her 
receptacle  and  drawn  forth  from  it  the  subject 
of  her  attention  she  tossed  back  to  its  place  on 
the  spread  of  brocade  the  former  of  these  trifles. 

145 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

The  big  black  seal,  under  this  discrimination, 
seemed  to  fix  our  young  man  with  a  sombre 
eye. 

"Is  there  any  objection  to  my  just  looking  at 
the  letter  now?"  And  then  when  he  had  taken 
it  and  yet  was  on  the  instant  and  as  by  the  mere 
feel  and  the  nearer  sight,  rather  less  than  more 
conscious  of  a  free  connection  with  it,  "Is  it  going 
to  be  bad  for  me  ?"  he  said. 

"Find  out  for  yourself!" 

"Break  the  seal  ?" 

"Isn't  it  meant  to  break?"  she  asked  with  a 
shade  of  impatience. 

He  noted  the  impatience,  sounding  her  nervous 
ness,  but  saw  at  the  same  time  that  her  interest 
in  the  communication,  whatever  it  might  be,  was 
of  the  scantest,  and  that  she  suffered  from  having 
to  defer  to  his  own.  "If  I  needn't  answer  to 
night-  -I" 

"You  needn't  answer  ever." 

"Oh  well  then  it  can  wait.  But  you're  right 
— it  mustn't  just  wait  in  my  pocket." 

This  pleased  her.  "As  I  say,  it  must  have  a 
place  of  its  own." 

He  considered  of  that.  "You  mean  that  when 
I  have  read  it  I  may  still  want  to  treasure  it  ? " 

She  had  in  hand  again  the  great  fan  that  hung 
by  a  long  fine  chain  from  her  girdle,  and,  flaring 
it  open,  she  rapidly  closed  it  again,  the  motion 
seeming  to  relieve  her.  "I  mean  that  my  father 

146 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

has  written  you  at  this  end  of  his  days — and  that 

that's  all  I  know  about  it." 

"You  asked  him  no  question ?" 

"As  to  why  he  should  write?     I  wouldn't," 

said  Rosanna,  "have  asked  him  for  the  world. 

It's  many  a  day  since  we've  done  that,  either  he 

or   I — at   least  when   a   question   could   have   a 


sense." 


"Thank  you  then,"  Gray  smiled,  "for  answer 
ing  mine."  He  looked  about  him  for  whatever 
might  still  help  them,  and  of  a  sudden  had  a 
light.  "Why  the  ivory  tower!"  And  while  her 
eyes  followed:  "That  beautiful  old  thing  on  the 
top  of  the  secretary — happy  thought  if  it  is  old!" 
He  had  seen  at  a  glance  that  this  object  was  what 
they  wanted,  and,  a  nearer  view  confirming  the 
thought,  had  reached  for  it  and  taken  it  down. 
"There  it  was  waiting  for  you.  Isnt  it  an  ivory 
tower,  and  doesn't  living  in  an  ivory  tower  just 
mean  the  most  distinguished  retirement  ?  I  don't 
want  yet  awhile  to  settle  in  one  myself — though 
I've  always  thought  it  a  thing  I  should  like  to 
come  to;  but  till  I  do  make  acquaintance  with 
what  you  have  for  me  a  retreat  for  the  mystery 
is  pleasant  to  think  of."  Such  was  the  fancy  he 
developed  while  he  delicately  placed  his  happy 
find  on  the  closed  and  polished  lid  of  the  grand 
piano,  where  the  rare  surface  reflected  the  pale 
rich  ivory  and  his  companion  could  have  it  well 
before  her.  The  subject  of  this  attention  might 

H7 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

indeed  pass,  by  a  fond  conceit,  on  its  very  re 
duced  scale,  for  a  builded  white-walled  thing, 
very  tall  in  proportion  to  the  rest  of  its  size  and 
rearing  its  head  from  its  rounded  height  as  if  a 
miniature  flag  might  have  flown  there.  It  was  a 
remarkable  product  of  some  eastern,  probably 
some  Indian,  patience,  and  of  some  period  as 
well  when  patience  in  such  causes  was  at  the 
greatest — thanks  to  which  Gray,  loving  ancient 
artistry  and  having  all  his  life  seen  much  of  it, 
had  recognised  at  a  glance  the  one  piece  in  the 
room  that  presented  an  interest.  It  consisted 
really  of  a  cabinet,  of  easily  moveable  size,  seated 
in  a  circular  socket  of  its  own  material  and 
equipped  with  a  bowed  door,  which  dividing  in 
the  middle,  after  a  minute  gold  key  had  been 
turned,  showed  a  superposition  of  small  drawers 
that  went  upwards  diminishing  in  depth,  so  that 
the  topmost  was  of  least  capacity.  The  high 
curiosity  of  the  thing  was  in  the  fine  work  required 
for  making  and  keeping  it  perfectly  circular;  an 
effect  arrived  at  by  the  fitting  together,  apparently 
by  tiny  golden  rivets,  of  numerous  small  curved 
plates  of  the  rare  substance,  each  of  these,  in 
cluding  those  of  the  two  wings  of  the  exquisitely 
convex  door,  contributing  to  the  artful,  the  total 
rotundity.  The  series  of  encased  drawers  worked 
to  and  fro  of  course  with  straight  sides,  but  also 
with  small  bowed  fronts,  these  made  up  of  the 
same  adjusted  plates.  The  whole,  its  infinite 

148 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

neatness  exhibited,  proved  a  wonder  of  wasted 
ingenuity,  and  Rosanna,  pronouncing  herself  stu 
pid  not  to  have  anticipated  him,  rendered  all 
justice,  under  her  friend's  admiring  emphasis,  to 
this  choicest  of  her  resources.  Of  how  they  had 
come  by  it,  either  she  or  her  sparing  parent,  she 
couldn't  at  once  bethink  herself:  on  their  taking 
the  Newport  house  for  the  few  weeks  her  direc 
tion  had  been  general  that  an  assortment  of  odds 
and  ends  from  New  York  should  disperse  itself, 
for  mitigation  of  bleakness,  in  as  many  of  the 
rooms  as  possible;  and  with  quite  different  matters 
to  occupy  her  since  she  had  taken  the  desired 
effect  for  granted.  Her  father's  condition  had 
precluded  temporary  inmates,  and  with  Gray's 
arrival  also  in  mind  she  had  been  scarce  aware 
of  minor  importances.  "Of  course  you  know — 
I  knew  you  would  \"  were  the  words  in  which 
she  assented  to  his  preference  for  the  ivory  tower 
and  which  settled  for  him,  while  he  made  it  beau 
tifully  slide,  the  fact  that  the  shallowest  of  the 
drawers  would  exactly  serve  for  his  putting  his 
document  to  sleep.  So  then  he  slipped  it  in,  re 
joicing  in  the  tight  fit  of  the  drawer,  carefully 
making  the  two  divisions  of  the  protective  door 
meet,  turning  the  little  gold  key  in  its  lock  and 
finally,  with  his  friend's  permission,  attaching  the 
key  to  a  small  silver  ring  carried  in  his  pocket 
and  serving  for  a  cluster  of  others.  With  this 
question  at  rest  it  seemed  at  once,  and  as  with 

149 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

an  effect  out  of  proportion  to  the  cause,  that  a 
great  space  before  them  had  been  cleared:  they 
looked  at  each  other  over  it  as  if  they  had  be 
come  more  intimate,  and  as  if  now,  in  the  free 
air,  the  enormities  already  named  loomed  up 
again.  All  of  which  was  expressed  in  Gray's 
next  words. 

"May  I  ask  you,  in  reference  to  something 
you  just  now  said,  whether  my  uncle  took  action 
for  leaving  me  money  before  our  meeting  could 
be  in  question  ?  Because  if  he  did,  you  know,  I 
understand  less  than  ever.  That  he  should  want 
to  see  me  if  he  was  thinking  of  me,  that  of  course 
I  can  conceive;  but  that  he  shouldn't  wait  till 
he  had  seen  me  is  what  I  find  extraordinary." 

If  she  gave  him  the  impression  of  keeping  her 
answer  back  a  little,  it  wasn't,  he  was  next  to 
see,  that  she  was  not  fully  sure  of  it.  "He  had 
seen  you." 

"You  mean  as  a  small  boy?" 

"No — at  this  distance  of  time  that  didn't 
count."  She  had  another  wait,  but  also  another 
assurance.  "He  had  seen  you  in  the  great  fact 
about  you." 

"And  what  in  the  world  do  you  call  that?" 

"Why,  that  you  are  more  out  of  it  all,  out  of 
the  air  he  has  breathed  all  his  life  and  that  in 
these  last  years  has  more  and  more  sickened  him, 
than  anyone  else  in  the  least  belonging  to  him, 
that  he  could  possibly  put  his  hand  on." 

150 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

He  stood  before  her  with  his  hands  in  his 
pockets — he  could  study  her  now  quite  as  she 
had  studied  himself.  "The  extent,  Rosanna,  to 
which  you  must  have  answered  for  me!" 

She  met  his  scrutiny  from  between  more  nar 
rowed  lids.  "I  did  put  it  all  to  him — I  spoke  for 
you  as  earnestly  as  one  can  ever  speak  for  an 
other.  But  you're  not  to  gather  from  it,"  she 
thus  a  trifle  awkwardly  smiled,  "that  I  have  let 
you  in  for  twenty  millions,  or  for  anything  ap 
proaching.  He  will  have  left  you,  by  my  con 
viction,  all  he  has;  but  he  has  nothing  at  all  like 
that.  That's  all  I'm  sure  of — of  no  details  what 
ever.  Even  my  father  doesn't  know,"  she  added; 
"in  spite  of  its  having  been  for  a  long  time  the 
thing  he  has  most  wanted  to,  most  sat  here,  these 
weeks,  on  some  chance  of  his  learning.  The 
truth,  I  mean,  of  Mr.  Betterman's  affairs." 

Gray  felt  a  degree  of  relief  at  the  restrictive 
note  on  his  expectations  which  might  fairly  have 
been  taken,  by  its  signs,  for  a  betrayed  joy  in  their 
extent.  The  air  had  really,  under  Rosanna's 
touch,  darkened  itself  with  numbers;  but  what 
she  had  just  admitted  was  a  rift  of  light.  In  this 
light,  which  was  at  the  same  time  that  of  her  allu 
sion  to  Mr.  Gaw's  unappeased  appetite,  his  vision 
of  that  gentleman  at  the  other  house  came  back 
to  him,  and  he  said  in  a  moment:  "I  see,  I  see. 
He  tried  to  get  some  notion  out  of  me." 

"Poor    father!"    she    answered    to    this — but 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

without  time  for  more  questions,  as  at  the  mo 
ment  she  spoke  the  door  of  the  room  opened  and 
Doctor  Hatch  appeared.  He  paused,  softly  por 
tentous,  where  he  stood,  and  so  he  met  Rosanna's 
eyes.  He  held  them  a  few  seconds,  and  the  effect 
was  to  press  in  her,  to  all  appearance,  the  same 
spring  our  young  man  had  just  touched.  "Poor, 
poor,  poor  father !"  she  repeated,  but  as  if  brought 
back  to  him  from  far  away.  She  took  in  what 
had  happened,  but  not  at  once  nor  without  an 
effort  what  it  called  on  her  for;  so  that  "Won't 
you  come  up?"  her  informant  had  next  to  ask. 
To  this,  while  Gray  watched  her,  she  rallied 
—"If  you'll  stay  here."  With  which,  looking 
at  neither  of  them  again,  as  the  Doctor  kept  the 
door  open,  she  passed  out,  he  then  closing  it  on 
her  and  transferring  his  eyes  to  Gray — who 
hadn't  to  put  a  question,  so  sharply  did  the 
raised  and  dropped  hands  signify  that  all  was 
over.  The  fact,  in  spite  of  everything,  startled 
our  young  man,  who  had  with  his  companion  a 
moment's  mute  exchange. 

"He  has  died  while  I've  kept  her  here?" 
Doctor  Hatch  just  demurred.     "You  kept  her 
through  her  having  sent  for  you  to  talk  to  you." 
"Yes,  I  know.     But  it's  very  extraordinary!" 
"You    seem    to    make    people    extraordinary. 
You've  made  your  uncle,  you  know — 

"Yes  indeed — but  haven't  I  made  him  better?" 
Gray  asked. 

152 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

The  Doctor  again  for  a  moment  hesitated. 
"Yes — in  the  sense  that  he  must  be  now  at  last 
really  resting.  But  I  go  back  to  him." 

"I'll  go  with  you  of  course,"  said  Gray,  look 
ing  about  for  his  hat.  As  he  found  it  he  oddly 
remembered.  "Why  she  asked  me  to  dinner!" 

It  all  but  amused  the  Doctor.  "You  inspire 
remarkable  efforts." 

"Well,  I'm  incapable  of  making  them."  It 
seemed  now  queer  enough.  "I  can't  stay  to 
dinner." 

"Then  we'll  go."  With  which  however,  Doc 
tor  Hatch  was  not  too  preoccupied  to  have  had 
his  attention,  within  the  minute,  otherwise  taken. 
"What  a  splendid  piece!"  he  exclaimed  in  pres 
ence  of  the  ivory  tower. 

"It  is  splendid,"  said  Gray,  feeling  its  beauty 
again  the  brightest  note  in  the  strangeness;  but 
with  a  pang  of  responsibility  to  it  taking  him 
too.  "Miss  Gaw  has  made  me  a  present  of  it." 

"Already?  You  do  work  them!" — and  the 
good  physician  fairly  grazed  again  the  act  of 
mirth.  "So  you'll  take  it  away?" 

Gray  paused  a  moment  before  his  acquisition, 
which  seemed  to  have  begun  to  guard,  within 
the  very  minute,  a  secret  of  greater  weight.  Then 
"No,  I'll  come  back  to  it,"  he  said  as  they  de 
parted  by  the  long  window  that  opened  to  the 
grounds  and  through  which  Miss  Mumby  had 
brought  him  in. 

153 


BOOK  THIRD 

I 

"WHY  I  haven't  so  much  as  seen  him  yet," 
Cissy  perforce  confessed  to  her  friend,  Mrs.  Brad- 
ham's  friend,  everybody's  friend,  even,  already 
and  so  coincidentally,  Graham  Fielder's;  this 
recipient  of  her  avowal  having  motored  that  day 
from  Boston,  after  detention  there  under  a  neces 
sity  of  business  and  the  stress  of  intolerable  heat, 
but  having  reached  Newport  in  time  for  tea,  a 
bath,  a  quick  "change"  and  a  still  quicker  im 
pression  of  blest  refreshment  from  the  fine  air 
and  from  various  other  matters.  He  had  come 
forth  again,  during  the  time  left  him  between 
these  performed  rites  and  the  more  formal  dress 
ing-hour,  in  undisguised  quest  of  our  young 
lady,  who  had  so  disposed  certain  signs  of  her 
whereabouts  that  he  was  to  waste  but  few  steps 
in  selection  of  a  short  path  over  the  longest  stretch 
of  lawn  and  the  mass  of  seaward  rocks  forming 
its  limit.  Arriving  to  spend  with  the  Bradhams 
as  many  or  as  few  days  as  the  conditions  to  be 
recognised  on  the  spot  might  enjoin,  this  hero, 
Horton  Vint,  had  alighted  at  one  of  those  hours 
of  brilliant  bustle  which  could  show  him  as  all 

154 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

in  his  element  if  he  chose  to  appear  so,  or  could 
otherwise  appeal  at  once  to  his  perfect  aptitude 
for  the  artful  escape  and  the  undetected  counter 
plot.  But  the  pitch  had  by  that  moment  dropped 
and  the  company  dispersed,  so  far  as  the  quarter 
before  him  was  concerned :  the  tennis-ground  was 
a  velvet  void,  the  afternoon  breeze  conveyed  soft 
nothings — all  of  which  made  his  occasion  more 
spacious  for  Horton.  Cissy,  from  below,  her 
charmingly  cool  cove,  had  watchfully  signalled 
up,  and  they  met  afresh,  on  the  firm  clear  sand 
where  the  drowsy  waves  scarce  even  lapsed,  with 
forms  of  intimacy  that  the  sequestered  spot 
happily  favoured.  The  sense  of  waiting  under 
stood  and  crowned  gave  grace  to  her  opened  arms 
when  the  young  man,  as  he  was  still  called,  erect, 
slim,  active,  brightly  refreshed  and,  like  herself, 
given  the  temperature,  inconsiderably  attired, 
first  showed  himself  against  the  sky;  it  had  cost 
him  but  a  few  more  strides  and  steps,  an  easy 
descent,  to  spring  to  her  welcome  with  the 
strongest  answering  emphasis.  They  met  as 
on  ground  already  so  prepared  that  not  an  un 
certainty,  on  either  side,  could  make  reunion  less 
brave  or  confidence  less  fine;  they  had  to  effect 
no  clearance,  to  stand  off  from  no  risk;  and,  ob 
serving  them  thus  in  their  freedom,  you  might 
well  have  asked  yourself  by  what  infallible  tact 
they  had  mastered  for  intercourse  such  perfect 
reciprocities  of  address.  You  would  certainly 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

have  concluded  to  their  entire  confidence  in 
these.  "With  a  dozen  people  in  the  house  it  is 
luck,"  Horton  had  at  once  appreciatively  said; 
but  when  their  fellow-visitors  had  been  handled 
between  them  for  a  minute  or  so  only  to  collapse 
again  like  aproned  puppets  on  removal  of  pressure 
from  the  squeak,  he  had  jumped  to  the  question 
of  Gray  Fielder  and  to  frank  interest  in  Cissy's 
news  of  him.  This  news,  the  death  of  Mr.  Better- 
man  that  morning,  quite  sufficiently  explained 
her  inability  to  produce  the  more  direct  impres 
sion;  that  worthy's  nephew  and  heir,  in  close 
and  more  and  more  quickened  attendance  on 
him  during  the  previous  days,  had  been  seen  as 
yet,  to  the  best  of  her  belief,  by  no  one  at  all  but 
dear  Davey — not  counting  of  course  Rosanna 
Gaw,  of  the  fact  of  whose  own  bereavement  as 
well  Horton  was  naturally  in  possession,  and  who 
had  made  it  possible,  she  understood,  for  their 
friend  to  call  on  Graham. 

"Oh  Davey  has  called  on  Graham?"  Horton 
was  concerned  to  ask  while  they  sat  together  on 
a  rude  worn  slab.  "What  then,  if  he  has  told 
you,  was  his  particular  idea?" 

"Won't  his  particular  idea,"  Cissy  returned, 
"be  exactly  the  one  he  won't  have  told  me? 
What  he  did  speak  to  me  of  yesterday  morning, 
and  what  I  told  him  I  thought  would  be  beautiful 
of  him,  was  his  learning  by  inquiry,  in  case  your 
friend  could  see  him,  whether  there  was  any  sort 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

of  thing  he  could  do  for  him  in  his  possible  want 
of  a  man  to  put  a  hand  on.  Because  poor  Ro- 
sanna,  for  all  one  thinks  of  her,"  said  the  girl, 
"  isn't  exactly  a  man.'* 

Horton's  attention  was  deeply  engaged;  his 
hands,  a  little  behind  him,  rested,  as  props  to 
his  slight  backward  inclination,  on  the  con 
venient  stone;  his  legs,  extended  before  him, 
enabled  him  to  dig  in  his  heels  a  little,  while  his 
eyes,  attached  to  the  stretch  of  sea  commanded 
by  their  rocky  retreat,  betrayed  a  fixed  and 
quickened  vision.  Rich  in  fine  lines  and  propor 
tions  was  his  handsome  face — with  scarce  less, 
moreover,  to  be  said  of  his  lean,  light  and  long- 
drawn,  though  so  much  more  pointed  and  rounded 
figure.  His  features,  after  a  manner  of  their  own, 
announced  an  energy  and  composed  an  array 
that  his  expression  seemed  to  disavow,  or  at 
least  to  be  indifferent  to,  and  had  the  practical 
effect  of  toning  down;  as  if  he  had  been  conscious 
that  his  nose,  of  the  bravest,  strongest  curve  and 
intrinsically  a  great  success,  was  too  bold  and 
big  for  its  social  connections,  that  his  mouth  pro 
tested  or  at  least  asserted  more  than  he  cared  to 
back  it  up  to,  that  his  chin  and  jaw  were  of  too 
tactless  an  importance,  and  his  fine  eyes,  above 
all,  which  suggested  choice  samples  of  the  more 
or  less  precious  stone  called  aquamarine,  too  dis 
posed  to  darken  with  the  force  of  a  straight  look 
—so  that  the  right  way  to  treat  such  an  excess 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

of  resource  had  become  for  him  quite  the  incon 
gruous  way,  the  cultivation  of  every  sign  and 
gage  that  liberties  might  be  taken  with  him.  He 
seemed  to  keep  saying  that  he  was  not,  tem 
peramentally  and  socially,  in  his  own  exaggerated 
style,  and  that  a  bony  structure,  for  instance,  as 
different  as  possible  from  the  one  he  unfortunately 
had  to  flaunt,  would  have  been  no  less  in  har 
mony  with  his  real  nature  than  he  sought  oc 
casion  to  show  it  was  in  harmony  with  his  con 
duct.  His  hard  mouth  sported,  to  its  visible 
relief  and  the  admiration  of  most  beholders,  a 
beautiful  mitigating  moustache;  his  eyes  wan 
dered  and  adventured  as  for  fear  of  their  very 
own  stare;  his  smile  and  his  laugh  went  all  lengths, 
you  would  almost  have  guessed,  in  order  that 
nothing  less  pleasant  should  occupy  the  ground; 
his  chin  advanced  upon  you  with  a  grace  fairly 
tantamount  to  the  plea,  absurd  as  that  might 
have  seemed,  that  it  was  in  the  act  of  receding. 
Thus  you  gained  the  impression — or  could  do  so 
if  your  fancy  quickened  to  him — that  he  would 
perhaps  rather  have  been  as  unwrought  and  un 
finished  as  so  many  monstrous  men,  on  the  gen 
eral  peopled  scene  of  those  climes,  appeared  more 
and  more  to  show  themselves,  than  appointed  to 
bristle  with  a  group  of  accents  that,  for  want  of 
a  sense  behind  them,  could  attach  themselves 
but  to  a  group  of  blanks.  The  sense  behind  the 
outward  man  in  Horton  Vint  bore  no  relation, 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

it  incessantly  signified,  to  his  being  importantly 
goodlooking;  it  was  in  itself  as  easily  and  freely 
human  a  sense,  making  as  much  for  personal  re 
assurance,  as  the  appeal  of  opportunity  in  an 
enjoying  world  could  ever  have  drawn  forth  and 
with  the  happy  appearance  of  it  confirmed  by 
the  whimsical,  the  quite  ironic,  turn  given  by  the 
,  society  in  which  he  moved  to  the  use  of  his  name. 
jit  could  never  have  been  so  pronounced  and 
j  written  Haughty  if  in  spite  of  superficial  ac- 
i  cidents  his  charming  clever  humility  and  so 
ciability  hadn't  thoroughly  established  themselves. 
He  lived  in  the  air  of  jokes,  and  yet  an  air  in  which 
bad  ones  fell  flat;  and  there  couldn't  have  been 
a  worse  one  than  to  treat  his  designation  as  true. 
It  might  have  been,  at  the  same  time,  scarce 
in  the  least  as  a  joke  that  he  presently  said,  in 
return  for  the  remark  on  Cissy's  part  last  re 
ported:  "Rosanna  is  surely  enough  of  a  man  to 
be  much  more  of  one  than  Davey.  However," 
he  went  on,  "we  agree,  don't  we?  about  the  mil 
lion  of  men  it  would  have  taken  to  handle  Gussy. 
A  Davey  the  more  or  the  less,  or  with  a  shade 
more  or  less  of  the  different  sufficiency,  would 
have  made  no  difference  in  that  question" — which 
had  indeed  no  interest  for  them  anyhow,  he  con 
veyed,  compared  with  the  fun  apparently  pro 
posed  by  this  advent  of  old  Gray.  That,  frankly, 
was  to  him,  Horton,  as  amusing  a  thing  as  could 
have  happened — at  a  time  when  if  it  hadn't  been 

159 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

for  Cissy's  herself  happening  to  be  for  him,  by 
exception,  a  comfort  to  think  of,  there  wasn't 
a  blest  thing  in  his  life  of  the  smallest  interest. 
"It  hadn't  struck  me  as  probable  at  all,  this 
revulsion  of  the  old  man's,"  he  mentioned,  "and 
though  Fielder  must  be  now  an  awfully  nice 
chap,  whom  you'll  like  and  find  charming,  I 
own  I  didn't  imagine  he  would  come  so  tremen 
dously  forward.  Over  there,  simply  with  his 
tastes,  his  'artistic  interests,'  or  literary  ones, 
or  whatever — I  mean  his  array  of  intellectual 
resources  and  lack  of  any  others — he  was  well 
enough,  by  my  last  impression,  and  I  liked  him 
both  for  his  decent  life  and  ways  and  for  his  liking 
me,  if  you  can  believe  it,  so  extraordinarily  much 
as  he  seemed  to.  What  the  situation  appears 
most  to  mean,  however,  is  that  of  a  sudden  he 
pops  into  a  real  light,  a  great  blazing  light  visible 
from  afar — which  is  quite  a  different  affair.  It 
can't  not  mean  at  least  all  sorts  of  odd  things— 
or  one  has  a  right  to  wonder  if  it  mayn't  mean 
them."  And  Horton  might  have  been  taken  up 
for  a  minute  of  silence  with  his  consideration  of 
some  of  these  glimmering  possibilities;  a  mo 
ment  during  which  Cissy  Foy  maintained  their 
association  by  fairly,  by  quite  visibly  breathing 
with  him  in  unison — after  a  fashion  that  testified 
more  to  her  interest  than  any  "cutting  in"  could 
have  done.  It  would  have  been  clear  that  they 
were  far  beyond  any  stage  of  association  at  which 

1 60 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

their  capacity  for  interest  in  the  contribution  of 
either  to  what  was  between  them  should  depend 
upon  verbal  proof.  It  depended  in  fact  as  little 
on  any  other  sort,  such  for  instance  as  searching 
eyes  might  invoke;  she  hadn't  to  look  at  her 
friend  to  follow  him  further — she  but  looked  off 
to  those  spaces  where  his  own  vision  played,  and 
it  was  by  pressing  him  close  there  that  she  fol 
lowed.  Her  companion's  imagination,  by  the 
time  he  spoke  again,  might  verily  have  travelled 
far. 

"What  comes  to  me  is  just  the  wonder  of 
whether  such  a  change  of  fortune  may  possibly 
not  spoil  him — he  was  so  right  and  nice  as  he 
was.  I  remember  he  used  really  to  exasperate 
me  almost  by  seeming  not  to  have  wants,  unless 
indeed  it  was  by  having  only  those  that  could 
be  satisfied  over  there  as  a  kind  of  matter  of 
course  and  that  were  those  I  didn't  myself  have — 
in  any  degree  at  least  that  could  make  up  for 
the  non-satisfaction  of  my  others.  I  suppose  it 
amounted  really,"  said  Horton,  "to  the  fact 
that,  being  each  without  anything  to  speak  of 
in  our  pockets,  or  then  any  prospect  of  anything, 
he  accepted  that  because  he  happened  to  like 
most  the  pleasures  that  were  not  expensive.  I 
on  my  side  raged  at  my  inability  to  meet  or  to 
cultivate  expense — which  seemed  to  me  good  and 
happy,  quite  the  thing  most  worth  while,  in  it 
self:  as  for  that  matter  it  still  seems.  *La  lecture 

161 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

et  la  promenade,'  which  old  Roulet,  our  pasteur 
at  Neuchatel  used  so  to  enjoin  on  us  as  the  highest 
joys,  really  appealed  to  Gray,  to  all  appearance, 
in  the  sense  in  which  Roulet  regarded,  or  pre 
tended  to  regard,  them — once  he  could  have  pic 
tures  and  music  and  talk,  which  meant  of  course 
pleasant  people,  thrown  in.  He  could  go  in  for 
such  things  on  his  means — ready  as  he  was  to  do 
all  his  travelling  on  foot  (I  wanted  as  much  then 
to  do  all  mine  on  horseback,)  and  to  go  to  the 
opera  or  the  play  in  the  shilling  seats  when  he 
couldn't  go  in  the  stalls.  I  loathed  so  everything 
but  the  stalls — the  stalls  everywhere  in  life — that 
if  I  couldn't  have  it  that  way  I  didn't  care  to 
have  it  at  all.  So  when  I  think  it  strikes  me  I 
must  have  liked  him  very  much  not  to  have 
wanted  to  slay  him — for  I  don't  remember  hav 
ing  given  way  at  any  particular  moment  to  threats 
or  other  aggressions.  That  may  have  been  be 
cause  I  felt  he  rather  extravagantly  liked  me — 
as  I  shouldn't  at  all  wonder  at  his  still  doing. 
At  the  same  time  if  I  had  found  him  beyond  a 
certain  point  objectionable  his  showing  he  took 
me  for  anything  wonderful  would  have  been,  I 
think,"  the  young  man  reflected,  "but  an  ag 
gravation  the  more.  However  that  may  be,  I'm 
bound  to  say,  I  shan't  in  the  least  resent  his  taking 
me  for  whatever  he  likes  now — if  he  can  at  all 
go  on  with  it  himself  I  shall  be  able  to  hold  up 
my  end.  The  dream  of  my  life,  if  you  must  know 

162 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

all,  dear— the  dream  of  my  life  has  been  to  be 
admired,  really  admired,  admired  for  all  he's 
worth,  by  some  awfully  rich  man.  Being  admired 
by  a  rich  woman  even  isn't  so  good — though  I've 
tried  for  that  too,  as  you  know,  and  equally  failed 
of  it;  I  mean  in  the  sense  of  their  being  ready  to 
do  it  for  all  they  are  worth.  I've  only  had  it  from 
the  poor,  haven't  I  ? — and  we've  long  since  had 
to  recognise,  haven't  we  ?  how  little  that  has 
done  for  either  of  us."  So  Horton  continued — 
so,  as  if  incited  and  agreeably,  irresistibly  in 
spired,  he  played,  in  the  soft  stillness  and  the 
protected  nook,  before  the  small  salt  tide  that 
idled  as  if  to  listen,  with  old  things  and  new,  with 
actualities  and  possibilities,  on  top  of  the  ancien 
tries,  that  seemed  to  want  but  a  bit  of  talking 
of  in  order  to  flush  and  multiply.  "There's  one 
thing  at  any  rate  I'll  be  hanged  if  I  shall  allow," 
he  wound  up;  "I'll  be  hanged  if  what  we  may  do 
for  him  shall — by  any  consent  of  mine  at  least 
— spoil  him  for  the  old  relations  without  inspir 
ing  him  for  the  new.  He  shan't  become  if  I  can 
help  it  as  beastly  vulgar  as  the  rest  of  us." 

The  thing  was  said  with  a  fine  sincere  ring, 
but  it  drew  from  Cissy  a  kind  of  quick  wail  of 
pain.  "Oh,  oh,  oh — what  a  monstrous  idea, 
Haughty,  that  he  possibly  could,  ever!" 

It  had  an  immediate,  even  a  remarkable  effect; 
it  made  him  turn  at  once  to  look  at  her,  giving 
his  lightest  pleasantest  laugh,  than  which  no 

163 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

sound  of  that  sort  equally  manful  had  less  of 
mere  male  stridency.  Then  it  made  him,  with 
a  change  of  posture,  shift  his  seat  sufficiently 
nearer  to  her  to  put  his  arm  round  her  altogether 
and  hold  her  close,  pressing  his  cheek  a  moment, 
with  due  precautions,  against  her  hair.  "That's 
awfully  nice  of  you.  We  will  pull  something  off. 
Is  what  you're  thinking  of  what  your  friend  out 
there  dans  le  temps,  the  stepfather,  Mr.  Wen- 
dover,  was  it  ?  told  you  about  him  in  that  grand 
manner  ?" 

"Of  course  it  is,"  said  Cissy  in  lucid  surrender 
and  as  if  this  truth  were  of  a  flatness  almost  to 
blush  for.  "Don't  you  know  I  fell  so  in  love 
with  Mr.  Northover,  whose  name  you  mispro 
nounce,  that  I've  kept  true  to  him  forever,  and 
haven't  been  really  in  love  with  you  in  the  least, 
and  shall  never  be  with  Gray  himself,  however 
much  I  may  want  to,  or  you  perhaps  may  even 
try  to  make  me  ? — any  more  than  I  shall  ever  be 
with  anyone  else.  What's  inconceivable,"  she 
explained,  "is  that  anyone  that  dear  delicious 
man  thought  good  enough  to  talk  of  to  me  as  he 
talked  of  his  stepson  should  be  capable  of  any 
thing  in  the  least  disgusting  in  any  way." 

"I  see,  I  see."  It  made  Horton,  for  reasons, 
hold  her  but  the  closer — yet  not  withal  as  if 
prompted  by  her  remarks  to  affectionate  levity. 
It  was  a  sign  of  the  intercourse  of  this  pair  that, 
move  each  other  though  they  might  to  further 

164 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

affection,  and  therewith  on  occasion  to  a  con 
gruous  gaiety,  they  treated  no  cause  and  no  effect 
of  that  sort  as  waste;  they  had  somehow  already 
so  worked  off,  in  their  common  interest,  all  pos 
sible  mistakes  and  vain  imaginings,  all  false 
starts  and  false  pursuits,  all  failures  of  unanimity. 
"Why  then  if  he's  really  so  decent,  not  to  say 
so  superior,"  Haughty  went  on,  "won't  it  be  the 
best  thing  in  the  world  and  a  great  simplification 
for  you  to  fall — that  is  for  you  to  be — in  love 
with  him  ?  That  will  be  better  for  me,  you  know, 
than  if  you're  not;  for  it's  the  impression  evi 
dently  made  on  you  by  the  late  Northover  that 
keeps  disturbing  my  peace  of  mind.  I  feel,  though 
I  can't  quite  tell  you  why,"  he  explained,  "that 
I'm  never  going  to  be  in  the  least  jealous  of  Gray, 
and  probably  not  even  so  much  as  envious;  so 
there's  your  chance — take  advantage  of  it  all 
the  way.  Like  him  at  your  ease,  my  dear,  and 
God  send  he  shall  like  you !  Only  be  sure  it's 
for  himself  you  do  it — and  for  your  own  self; 
as  you  make  out  your  possibilities,  de  part  et 
d'autre,  on  your  getting  nearer  to  them." 

"So  as  to  be  sure,  you  mean,"  Cissy  inquired, 
"of  not  liking  him  for  his  money?" 


II 

HE  waited  a  moment,  and  if  she  had  not  imme 
diately  after  her  words  sighed  "Oh  dear,  oh 
dear!"  in  quite  another,  that  is  a  much  more 
serious,  key,  the  appearance  would  perhaps  have 
been  that  for  ojjce_jn_a  blue moon  she  had  put 
into  his  mind  a  thought  he  couldn't  have.  He 
couldn't  have  the  thought  that  it  was  of  the  least 
importance  she  should  guard  herself  in  the  way 
she  mentioned ;  and  it  was  in  the  air,  the  very  next 
thing,  that  she  couldn't  so  idiotically  have  strayed 
as  to  mean  to  impute  it.  He  quickly  enough  made 
the  point  that  what  he  preferred  was  her  not 
founding  her  interest  in  Gray  so  very  abjectly 
on  another  man's  authority — given  the  uncanny 
fact  of  the  other  man's  having  cast  upon  her  a 
charm  which  time  and  even  his  death  had  done 
fso  little  to  abate.  Yes,  the  late  Northover  had 
!  clearly  had  something  about  him  that  it  worried 
a  fellow  to  have  her  perpetually  rake  up.  There 
she  was  in  peril  of  jealousy — his  jealousy  of  the 
queer  Northover  ghost;  unless  indeed  it  was  she 
herself  who  was  queerest,  ridden  as  her  spirit 
seemed  by  sexagenarian  charms !  He  could  look 
after  her  with  Gray — they  were  at  one  about 
Gray;  what  would  truly  alienate  them,  should 
she  persist,  would  be  his  own  exposure  to  com- 

166 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

parison  with  the  memory  of  a  rococo  Briton  he 
had  no  arms  to  combat.  Which  extravagance  of 
fancy  had  of  course  after  a  minute  sufficiently 
testified  to  the  clearance  of  their  common  air  that 
invariably  sprang  from  their  feeling  themselves 
again  together  and  finding  once  more  what  this 
came  to — all  under  sublime  palpability  of  proof. 
The  renewed  consciousness  did  perhaps  nothing 
for  their  difficulties  as  such,  but  it  did  everything 
for  the  interest,  the  amusement,  the  immediate 
inspiration  of  their  facing  them:  there  was  in 
that  such  an  element  of  their  facing  each  other 
and  knowing,  each  time  as  if  they  had  not  known 
it  before,  that  this  had  absolute  beauty.  It  had 
unmistakably  never  had  more  than  now,  even 
when  their  freedom  in  it  had  rapidly  led  them, 
under  Cissy's  wonderment,  to  a  consideration  of 
whether  a  happy  relation  with  their  friend  (he 
was  already  thus  her  friend  too,  without  her  ever 
having  seen  him !)  mightn't  have  to  count  with 
some  inevitable  claim,  some  natural  sentiment, 
asserted  and  enjoyed  on  Rosanna's  part,  not  to 
speak  of  the  effect  on  Graham  himself  of  that 
young  woman's  at  once  taking  such  an  interest 
in  him  and  coming  in  for  such  a  fortune. 

"In   addition  to  which  who  shall  pretend  to 

deny,"  the  girl  earnestly  asked,  "that  Rosanna 

has  in  herself  the  most  extraordinary  charm?" 

"Oh  you  think  she  has  extraordinary  charm?" 

"Of  course   I   do — and   so   do  }rou:    don't   be 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

absurd !  She's  simply  superb,"  Cissy  expounded, 
"in  her  own  original  way,  which  no  other  woman 
over  here — except  me  a  little  perhaps ! — has  so 
much  as  a  suspicion  of  anything  to  compare  with; 
and  which,  for  all  we  know,  constitutes  a  luxury 
entirely  at  Graham's  service."  Cissy  required 
but  a  single  other  look  at  it  all  to  go  on:  "I 
shouldn't  in  the  least  wonder  if  they  were  already 
engaged." 

"I  don't  think  there's  a  chance  of  it,"  Haughty 
said,  "and  I  hold  that  if  any  such  fear  is  your 
only  difficulty  you  may  be  quite  at  your  ease. 
Not  only  do  I  so  see  it,"  he  went  on,  "but  I  know 
why  I  do." 

Cissy  just  waited.  "You  consider  that  because 
she  refused  Horton  Vint  she'll  decline  marriage 
altogether?" 

"I  think  that  throws  a  light,"  this  gentleman 
smiled — "though  it  isn't  all  my  ground.  She 
turned  me  down,  two  years  ago,  as  utterly  as  I 
shall  ever  have  been  turned  in  my  life — and  if  I 
chose  so  to  look  at  it  the  experience  would  do  for 
me  beautifully  as  that  of  an  humiliation  served 
up  to  a  man  in  as  good  form  as  he  need  desire. 
That  it  was,  that  it  still  is  when  I  live  it  through 
again;  that  it  will  probably  remain,  for  my  com 
fort — in  the  sense  that  I'm  likely  never  to  have 
a  worse.  I've  had  my  dose,"  he  figured,  "of 
that  particular  black  draught,  and  I've  got  the 
bottle  there  empty  on  the  shelf." 

168 


THE   IVORY  TOWER 

"And  yet  you  signify  that  you're  all  the  same 
glad —  —  ? "  Cissy  didn't  for  the  instant  wholly 
follow. 

"Well,  it  all  came  to  me  then;  and  that  it  did 
all  come  is  what  I  have  the  advantage  of  now — 
I  mean,  you  see,  in  being  able  to  reassure  you  as 
I  do.  I  had  some  wonderful  minutes  with  her — 
it  didn't  take  long,"  Haughty  laughed.  "We 
saw  in  those  few  minutes,  being  both  so  horribly 
intelligent;  and  what  I  recognised  has  remained 
with  me.  What  she  did  is  her  own  affair — and 
that  she  could  so  perfectly  make  it  such,  without 
leaving  me  a  glimmer  of  doubt,  is  what  I  have, 
as  I  tell  you,  to  blink  at  forever.  I  may  ask  my 
self  if  you  like,"  he  pursued,  "why  I  should  'mind' 
so  much  if  I  saw  even  at  the  moment  that  she 
wasn't  at  any  rate  going  to  take  someone  else — 
and  if  you  do  I  shall  reply  that  I  didn't  need 
that  to  make  it  bad.  It  was  bad  enough  just  in 
itself.  My  point  is,  however,"  Horton  concluded, 
"that  I  can  give  you  at  least  the  benefit  of  my 
feeling  utterly  sure  that  Gray  will  have  no  chance. 
She's  in  the  dreadful  position — and  more  than 
ever  of  course  now — of  not  being  able  to  believe 
she  can  be  loved  for  herself." 

"You  mean  because  you  couldn't  make  her 
believe  it  ?"  asked  Cissy  after  taking  this  in. 

"No — not  that,  for  I  didn't  so  much  as  try. 
I  didn't — and  it  was  awfully  superior  of  me,  you 
know — approach  her  at  all  on  that  basis.  That," 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

said  Horton,  "is  where  it  cuts.  The  basis  was 
that  of  my  own  capacity  only — my  capacity  to 
serve  her,  in  every  particular,  with  every  apti 
tude  I  possess  in  the  world,  and  which  I  could 
see  she  saw  I  possess  (it  was  given  me  somehow 
to  send  that  home  to  her  !)  without  a  hair's  breadth 
overlooked.  I  shouldn't  have  minded  her  taking 
me  so  for  impossible,  blackly  impossible,  if  she 
had  done  it  under  an  illusion;  but  she  really 
believed  in  me  as  a  general  value,  quite  a  first- 
rate  value — that  I  stood  there  and  didn't  doubt. 
And  yet  she  practically  said  'You  ass!'  ' 

His  encircling  arm  gained,  for  response  to  this, 
however,  but  the  vibration  of  her  headshake— 
without  so  much  as  any  shudder  at  the  pain  he 
so  vividly  imaged.  "She  practically  said  that 
she  was  already  then  in  love  with  Mr.  Graham, 
and  you  wouldn't  have  had  a  better  chance  had 
a  passion  of  your  own  stuck  out  of  you.  If  I 
thought  she  didn't  admire  you,"  Cissy  said,  "I 
shouldn't  be  able  to  do  with  her  at  all — it  would 
be  too  stupid  of  her;  putting  aside  her  not  accept 
ing  you,  I  mean — for  a  woman  can't  accept  every 
man  she  admires.  I  suppose  you  don't  at  present 
object,"  she  continued,  "to  her  admiring  Mr. 
Graham  enough  to  account  for  anything;  espe 
cially  as  it  accounts  so  for  her  having  just  acted 
on  his  behalf  with  such  extraordinary  success. 
Doesn't  that  make  it  out  for  him,"  she  asked, 
"that  he's  admired  by  twenty  millions  plus  the 

170 


THE   IVORY  TOWER 

amount  that  her  reconciliation  of  him  with  his 
uncle  just  in  time  to  save  it,  without  an  hour  to 
spare,  will  represent  for  his  pocket  ?  We  don't 
know  what  that  lucky  amount  may  be — 

"No,  but  we  more  or  less  shall "  —Horton  took 
her  straight  up.  "Of  course,  without  exaggera 
tion,  that  will  be  interesting — even  though  it 
will  be  but  a  question,  I'm  quite  certain,  of  com 
paratively  small  things.  Old  Betterman — there 
are  people  who  practically  know,  and  I've  talked 
with  them — isn't  going  to  foot  up  to  any  faint 
likeness  of  what  Gaw  does.  That,  however,  has 
nothing  to  do  with  it:  all  that  is  relevant — since 
I  quite  allow  that,  speculation  for  speculation, 
our  association  in  this  sort  represents  finer  fun 
than  it  has  yet  succeeded  in  doing  in  other  sorts 
—all  that's  relevant  is  that  when  you've  seen 
Gray  you  mayn't  be  in  such  a  hurry  to  figure  him 
as  a  provoker  of  insatiable  passions.  Your  in 
sidious  Northover  has,  as  you  say,  worked  you 
up,  but  wait  a  little  to  see  if  the  reality  corre 
sponds." 

"He  showed  me  a  photograph,  my  insidious 
Northover,"  Cissy  promptly  recalled;  "he  was 
naif  enough,  poor  dear,  for  that.  In  fact  he 
made  me  a  present  of  several,  including  one  of 
himself;  I  owe  him  as  well  two  or  three  other 
mementos,  all  of  which  I've  cherished." 

"What  was  he  up  to  anyway,  the  old  cor- 
rupter  of  your  youth  ?  "—Horton  seemed  really 

171 


THE   IVORY  TOWER 

to  wonder.  "Unless  it  was  that  you  simply  re 
duced  him  to  infatuated  babble." 

"Well,  there  are  the  photographs  and  things 
to  show,"  she  answered  unembarrassed — "though 
I  haven't  them  with  me  here;  they're  put  away 
in  New  York.  His  portrait's  extremely  good- 
looking." 

"Do  you  mean  Mr.  Northover's  own?" 

"Oh  his  is  of  course  quite  beautiful.  But  I 
mean  Mr.  Fielder's — at  his  then  lovely  age.  I 
remember  it,"  said  Cissy,  "as  a  nice,  nice  face." 

Haughty  on  his  side  indulged  in  the  act  of 
memory,  concluding  after  an  instant  to  a  head- 
shake.  "He  isn't  at  all  remarkable  for  looks; 
but  putting  his  nice  face  at  its  best,  granting 
that  he  has  a  high  degree  of  that  advantage,  do 
you  see  Rosanna  so  carried  away  by  it  as  to  cast 
everything  to  the  winds  for  him?" 

Cissy  weighed  the  question.  "We've  seen 
surely  what  she  has  been  carried  away  enough 
to  do." 

"She  has  had  other  reasons — independent  of 
headlong  passion.  And  remember,"  he  further 
argued — "if  you  impute  to  her  a  high  degree  of 
that  sort  of  sensibility — how  perfectly  proof  she 
was  to  my  physical  attractions,  which  I  declare 
to  you  without  scruple  leave  the  very  brightest 
you  may  discover  in  Gray  completely  in  the 
shade." 

Again  his  companion  considered.  "Of  course 
172 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

you're  dazzlingly  handsome;  but  are  you,  my 
dear,  after  all — I  mean  in  appearance — so  very 
interesting  ?" 

The  inquiry  was  so  sincere  that  it  could  be 
met  but  in  the  same  spirit.  "Didn't  you  then 
find  me  so  from  the  first  minute  you  ever  looked 
at  me?" 

"We're  not  talking  of  me,"  she  returned,  "but 
of  people  who  happen  to  have  been  subjects  less 
predestined  and  victims  less  abject.  What,"  she 
then  at  once  went  on,  "is  Gray's  appearance 
'anyway'  ?  Is  he  black,  to  begin  with,  or  white, 
or  betwixt  and  between  ?  Is  he  little  or  big  or 
neither  one  thing  or  t'other?  Is  he  fat  or  thin 
or  of  *  medium  weight'  ?  There  are  always  such 
lots  to  be  told  about  people,  and  never  a  creature 
in  all  the  wide  world  to  tell.  Even  Mr.  North- 
over,  when  I  come  to  think  of  it,  never  mentioned 
his  size." 

"Well,  you  wouldn't  mention  it,"  Horton 
amiably  argued.  The  appeal,  he  showed  withal, 
stirred  him  to  certain  recoveries.  "And  I  should 
call  him  black — black  as  to  his  straight  thick 
hair,  which  I  see  rather  distinctively  'slick'  and 
soigne — the  hair  of  a  good  little  boy  who  never 
played  at  things  that  got  it  tumbled.  No,  he's 
only  very  middling  tall;  in  fact  so  very  mid 
dling,"  Haughty  made  out,  "that  it  probably 
comes  to  his  being  rather  short.  But  he  has 
neither  a  hump  nor  a  limp,  no  marked  physical 

173 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

deformity  of  any  sort;  has  in  fact  a  kind  of  futile 
fidgetty  quickness  which  suggests  the  little  man, 
and  the  nervous  and  the  active  and  the  ready; 
the  ready,  I  mean,  for  anything  in  the  way  of 
interest  and  talk — given  that  the  matter  isn't 
too  big  for  him.  The  '  active,'  I  say,  though 
at  the  same  time,"  he  noted,  "I  ask  mj^self 
what  the  deuce  the  activity  will  have  been 
about." 

The  girl  took  in  these  impressions  to  the  effect 
of  desiring  still  more  of  them.  "Doesn't  he 
happen  then  to  have  eyes  and  things?" 

"Oh  yes" — Horton  bethought  himself— "lots 
and  lots  of  eyes,  though  not  perhaps  so  many 
of  other  things.  Good  eyes,  fine  eyes,  in  fact  I 
think  anything  whatever  you  may  require  in  the 
way  of  eyes." 

"Then  clearly  they're  not  *  black':  I  never 
require  black  ones,"  she  said,  "in  any  conceivable 
connection:  his  eyes — blue-grey,  or  grey-blue, 
whichever  you  may  call  it,  and  far  and  away  the 
most  charming  kind  when  one  doesn't  happen  to 
be  looking  into  your  glorious  green  ones — his 
satisfactory  eyes  are  what  will  more  than  any 
thing  else  have  done  the  business.  They'll  have 
done  it  so,"  she  went  on,  "that  if  he  isn't  red  in 
the  face,  which  I  defy  him  to  be,  his  features 
don't  particularly  matter — though  there's  not 
the  least  reason  either  why  he  should  have  mean 
or  common  ones.  In  fact  he  hasn't  them  in  the 

174 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

photograph,     and    what     are    photographs,    the 
wretched  things,  but  the  very  truth  of  life  ?" 

"He's  not  red  in  the  face,"  Haughty  was  able 
to  state — "I  think  of  him  rather  as  of  a  pale, 
very  pale,  clean  brown;  and  entirely  unad- 
dicted,"  he  felt  sure,  "to  flushing  or  blushing. 
What  I  do  sort  of  remember  in  the  feature  way 
is  that  his  teeth  though  good,  fortunately,  as 
they're  shown  a  good  deal,  are  rather  too  small 
and  square;  for  a  man's,  that  is,  so  that  they  make 
his  smile  a  trifle— 

"A  trifle  irresistible  of  course,"  Cissy  broke  in 

-"through  their  being,  in  their  charming  form, 
of  the  happy  Latin  model;  extremely  like  my 
own,  be  so  good  as  to  notice  for  once  in  your 
life,  and  not  like  the  usual  Anglo-Saxon  fangs. 
You're  simply  describing,  you  know,"  she  added, 
"about  as  gorgeous  a  being  as  one  could  wish 
to  see." 

"It's  not  I  who  am  describing  him — it's  you, 
love;  and  ever  so  delightfully."  With  which, 
in  consistency  with  that,  he  himself  put  a  ques 
tion.  "What  does  it  come  to,  by  the  way,  in 
the  sense  of  a  moustache  ?  Does  he,  or  doesnt 
he  after  all,  wear  one  ?  It's  odd  I  shouldn't  re 
member,  but  what  does  the  photograph  say?" 

"It  seems  odd  indeed  7  shouldn't" — Cissy  had 
a  moment's  brooding.  She  gave  herself  out  as 
ashamed.  "Fancy  my  not  remembering  if  the 
photograph  is  moustachue\" 

175 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

"It  can't  be  then  very"  Horton  contributed 
—the  point  was  really  so  interesting. 

"No,"  Cissy  tried  to  settle,  "the  photograph 
can't  be  so  very  moustachue." 

"His  moustaches,  I  mean,  if  he  wears  'em, 
can't  be  so  very  prodigious;  or  one  could  scarcely 
have  helped  noticing,  could  one?" 

"Certainly  no  one  can  ever  have  failed  to 
notice  yours — and  therefore  Gray's,  if  he  has 
any,  must  indeed  be  very  inferior.  And  yet  he 
can't  be  shaved  like  a  sneak-thief — or  like  all 
the  world  here,"  she  developed;  "for  I  won't 
have  him  with  nothing  at  all  any  more  than  I'll 
have  him  with  anything  prodigious,  as  you  say; 
which  is  worse  than  nothing.  When  I  say  I 
won't  have  him  with  nothing,"  she  explained, 
"I  mean  I  won't  have  him  subject  to  the  so  uni 
versally  and  stupidly  applied  American  law  that 
every  man's  face  without  exception  shall  be 
scraped  as  clean,  as  glabre,  as  a  fish's — which  it 
makes  so  many  of  them  so  much  resemble.  I 
won't  have  him  so,"  she  said,  "because  I  won't 
have  him  so  idiotically  gregarious  and  without 
that  sense  of  differences  in  things,  and  of  their 
relations  and  suitabilities,  which  such  exhibitions 
make  one  so  ache  for.  If  he's  gregarious  to  that 
sort  of  tune  we  must  renounce  our  idea — that  is 
you  must  drop  yours — of  my  working  myself  up 
to  snatch  him  from  the  arms  of  Rosanna.  I 
must  believe  in  him,  for  that,  I  must  see  him  at 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

least  in  my  own  way,'*  she  pursued;  "believing 
in  myself,  or  even  believing  in  you,  is  a  com 
parative  detail.  I  won't  have  him  bristle  with 
horrid  demagogic  notes.  I  shouldn't  be  able  to 
act  a  scrap  on  that  basis." 

It  was  as  if  what  she  said  had  for  him  the  in 
terest  at  once  of  the  most  intimate  and  the  most 
enlarged  application;  it  was  in  fact  as  if  she 
alone  in  all  the  world  could  touch  him  in  such 
fine  ways — could  amuse  him,  could  verily  in 
struct  him,  to  anything  like  such  a  tune.  "It 
seems  peculiarly  a  question  of  bristles  if  it  all 
depends  on  his  moustache.  Our  suspense  as  to 
that,  however,  needn't  so  much  ravage  us," 
Haughty  added,  "when  we  remember  that  Davey, 
who,  you  tell  me,  will  by  this  time  have  seen 
him,  can  settle  the  question  for  us  as  soon  as  we 
meet  at  dinner.  It  will  by  the  same  stroke  then 
settle  that  of  the  witchcraft  which  has  according 
to  your  theory  so  bedevilled  poor  dear  Rosanna's 
sensibility — leading  it  such  a  dance,  I  mean,  and 
giving  such  an  empire  to  certain  special  items 
of  our  friend's  '  personality,'  that  the  connection 
was  practically  immediate  with  his  brilliant 


status." 


177 


Ill 

HORTON,  looking  at  his  watch,  had  got  up  as  he 
spoke — which  Cissy  at  once  also  did  under  this 
recall  of  the  lapse  of  their  precious  minutes. 
There  was  a  point,  however,  left  for  her  to  make; 
which  she  did  with  the  remark  that  the  item  they 
had  been  discussing  in  particular  couldn't  have 
been  by  itself  the  force  that  had  set  their  young 
woman  originally  in  motion,  inasmuch  as  Gray 
wouldn't  have  had  a  moustache  when  a  small 
boy  or  whatever,  and  as  since  that  young  con 
dition,  she  understood,  Rosanna  hadn't  again 
seen  him.  A  proposition  to  which  Haughty's 
assent  was  to  remain  vague,  merged  as  it  sud 
denly  became  in  the  cry  of  "Hello,  here  he  is!" 
and  a  prompt  gay  brandish  of  arms  up  at  their 
host  Bradham,  arrayed  for  the  evening,  white- 
waistcoated  and  buttonholed,  robustly  erect  on 
an  overlooking  ledge  and  explaining  his  presence, 
from  the  moment  it  was  thus  observed,  by  calling 
down  that  Gussy  had  sent  him  to  see  if  she  wasn't 
to  expect  them  at  dinner.  It  was  practically  a 
summons  to  Cissy,  as  the  girl  easily  recognised, 
to  leave  herself  at  least  ten  minutes  to  dress  de 
cently — in  spite  of  the  importance  of  which  she 
so  challenged  Davey  on  another  score  that,  as 
a  consequence,  the  good  gorgeous  man,  who 

178 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

shone  with  every  effect  of  the  bath  and  every 
resource  of  the  toilet,  had  within  the  pair  of 
minutes  picked  out  such  easiest  patent-leather 
steps  as  would  enable  him  to  convict  the  com 
panions  of  a  shameless  dawdle.  She  had  had 
time  to  articulate  for  Horton's  benefit,  with  no 
more  than  due  distinctness,  that  he  must  have 
seen  them,  and  Horton  had  as  quickly  found  the 
right  note  and  the  right  wit  for  the  simple  re 
assurance  "Oh  Davey—  — !"  As  occupants  of 
a  place  of  procrastination  that  they  only  were 
not  such  fools  as  to  leave  unhaunted  they  frankly 
received  their  visitor,  any  impulse  in  whom  to 
sprinkle  stale  banter  on  their  search  for  solitude 
would  have  been  forestalled,  even  had  it  been 
supposable  of  so  perfect  a  man  of  the  world,  by 
the  instant  action  of  his  younger  guest's  strategic 
curiosity. 

"Has  he,  please,  just  has  he  or  no,  got  a  mous 
tache?"— she  appealed  as  if  the  fate  of  empires 
depended  on  it. 

"I've  been  telling  her,"  Horton  explained, 
"  whatever  I  can  remember  of  Gray  Fielder,  but 
she  won't  listen  to  anything  if  I  can't  first  be 
sure  as  to  that.  So  as  I  want  her  enormously  to 
like  him,  we  both  hang,  you  see,  on  your  lips; 
unless  you  call  it,  more  correctly,  on  his." 

Davey's  evening  bloom  opened  to  them  a  dense 
but  perfectly  pathless  garden  of  possibilities;  out 
of  which,  while  he  faced  them,  he  left  them  to 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

pluck  by  their  own  act  any  bright  flower  they 
sufficiently  desired  to  reach.  Wonderful  during 
the  few  instants,  between  these  flagrant  world 
lings,  the  exchange  of  fine  recognitions.  It  would 
have  been  hard  perhaps  to  say  of  them  whether 
it  was  most  discernible  that  Haughty  and  Cissy 
trusted  most  his  intelligence  or  his  indifference, 
and  whether  he  most  applauded  or  ignored  the 
high  perfection  of  their  assurance.  What  was 
testified  to  all  round,  at  all  events — 1 

"Ah  then  he  is  as  'odd'  as  I  was  sure — in  spite 
of  Haughty's  perverse  theory  that  we  shall  find 
him  the  flattest  of  the  flat !" 

It  might  have  been  at  Haughty's  perverse 
theory  that  Davey  was  most  moved  to  stare- 
had  he  not  quickly  betrayed,  instead  of  this,  a 
marked  attention  to  the  girl  herself.  "Oh  you 
little  wonder  and  joy  !" 

"She  is  a  little  wonder  and  joy,"  Horton  said 
—that  at  any  rate  came  out  clear. 

"What  you  are,  my  boy,  I'm  not  pretending 

1  There  is  a  gap  here  in  the  MS.,  with  the  following  note  by  the 
author:  "It  is  the  security  of  the  two  others  with  him  that  is  testi 
fied  to;  but  I  mustn't  make  any  sort  of  spread  about  it  or  about 
anything  else  here  now,  and  only  put  Davey  on  some  non-committal 
reply  to  the  question  addressed  him,  such  as  keeps  up  the  mystery 
or  ambiguity  or  suspense  about  Gray,  his  moustache  and  everything 
else,  so  as  to  connect  properly  with  what  follows.  The  real  point 
is — that  comes  back  to  me,  and  it  is  in  essence  enough — that  he 
pleads  he  doesn't  remember,  didn't  notice,  at  all;  and  thereby  oddly- 
enough  can't  say.  It  will  come  to  me  right  once  I  get  into  it.  One 
sees  that  Davey  plays  with  them." 

1 80 


THE   IVORY  TOWER 

to  say,"  Davey  returned  in  answer  to  this;  "for 
I  don't  accept  her  account  of  your  vision  of  Gray 
as  throwing  any  light  on  it  at  all." 

"On  his  judgment  of  Mr.  Fielder,  do  you 
mean,"  Cissy  earnestly  asked,  "or  on  your  evi 
dently  awful  opinion  of  his  own  dark  nature?" 

"Haughty  knows  that  I  lose  myself  in  his 
dark  nature,  at  my  spare  moments,  and  with 
wind  enough  on  to  whistle  in  that  dark,  very 
much  as  if  I  had  the  fine  excitement  of  the  Foret 
de  Bondy  to  deal  with.  He's  well  aware  that  I 
know  no  greater  pleasure  of  the  imagination  than 
that  sort  of  interest  in  him — when  I  happen  also 
to  have  the  time  and  the  nerve.  Let  these  things 
serve  me  now,  however,  only  to  hurry  you  up," 
Davey  went  on;  "and  to  say  that  I  of  course 
had  with  our  fortunate  friend  an  impressive 
quarter  of  an  hour — which  everyone  will  want 
to  know  about,  so  that  I  must  keep  it  till  we  sit 
down.  But  the  great  thing  is  after  all  for  your 
self,  Haughty,"  he  added — "and  you  had  better 
know  at  once  that  he  particularly  wants  to  see 
you.  He'll  be  glad  of  you  at  the  very  first  mo 
ment — 

But  Horton  had  already  taken  him  easily  up. 
"Of  course  I  know,  my  dear  man,  that  he  par 
ticularly  wants  to  see  me.  He  has  written  me 
nothing  else  from  the  moment  he  arrived." 

"He  has  written  you,  you  wretch,"  Cissy  at 
once  extravagantly  echoed — "he  has  written  you 

181 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

all  sorts  of  things  and  you  haven't  so  much  as 
told  me?" 

"He  hasn't  written  me  all  sorts  of  things"- 
Horton   directed  this   answer  to  Davey   alone — 
"but  has  written  me  in  such  straight  confidence 
and    friendship    that    I've    been   wondering    if   I 
mayn't  go  round  to  him  this  evening." 

"Gussy  will  no  doubt  excuse  you  for  that  pur 
pose  with  the  utmost  joy,"  Davey  rejoined — 
"though  I  don't  think  I  advise  you  to  ask  her 
leave  if  you  don't  want  her  at  once  to  insist  on 
going  with  you.  Go  to  him  alone,  very  quietly 
— and  with  the  happ}r  confidence  of  doing  him 
good." 

It  had  been  on  Cissy  that,  for  his  part,  Davey 
had,  in  speaking,  rested  his  eyes;  and  it  might 
by  the  same  token  have  been  for  the  benefit  of 
universal  nature,  suspended  to  listen  over  the 
bosom  of  the  deep,  that  Horton's  lips  phrased 
his  frank  reaction  upon  their  entertainer's  words. 
"Well  then,  ye  powers,  the  amount  of  good  that 
I  shall  undertake !" 

Davey  Bradham  and  Cissy  Foy  exchanged  on 
the  whole  ground  for  a  moment  a  considerable 
smile;  his  share  in  which,  however,  it  might 
exactly  have  been  that  prompted  the  young 
woman's  further  expression  of  their  intelligence. 
"It's  too  charming  that  he  yearns  so  for  Haughty 
—and  too  sweet  that  Haughty  can  now  rush  to 
him  at  once."  To  which  she  then  appended  in 

182 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

another  tone:  "One  takes  for  granted  of  course 
that  Rosanna  was  with  him." 

Davey  at  this  but  continued  to  bloom  and  beam; 
which  gave  Horton,  even  with  a  moment's  delay, 
time  to  assist  his  better  understanding.  "She 
doesn't  even  yet  embrace  the  fact,  tremendously 
as  I've  driven  it  into  her,  that  if  Rosanna  had 
been  there  he  couldn't  have  breathed  my  name." 

This  made  Davey,  however,  but  throw  up  de 
risive  hands;  though  as  with  an  impatient  turn 
now  for  their  regaining  the  lawn.  "My  dear 
man,  Rosanna  breathes  your  name  with  all  the 
force  of  her  lungs  !" 

Horton,  jerking  back  his  head  for  the  bright 
reassurance,  laughed  out  with  amusement.  "  What 
a  jolly  cue  then  for  my  breathing  of  hers !  I'll 
roar  it  to  all  the  echoes,  and  everything  will  be 
well.  But  what  one's  talking  about,"  he  said, 
"is  the  question  of  Gray's  naming  me."  He 
looked  from  one  of  his  friends  to  the  other,  and 
then,  as  gathering  them  into  the  interest  of  it: 
"I'll  bet  you  a  fiver  that  he  doesn't  at  any  rate 
speak  to  me  of  Miss  Gaw." 

"Well,  what  will  that  prove?"  Davey  asked,quite 
easy  about  it  and  leading  the  way  up  the  rocks. 

"In  the  first  place  how  much  he  thinks  of  her," 
said  Cissy,  who  followed  close  behind.  "And  in 
the  second  that  it's  ten  to  one  Haughty  will  find 
her  there." 

"I  don't  care  if  I  do — not  a  scrap!"  Horton 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

also  took  his  way.  "I  don't  care  for  anything 
now  but  the  jolly  fun,  the  jolly  fun—  -!"  He 
had  committed  it  all  again,  by  the  time  they 
reached  the  clifFs  edge,  to  the  bland  participating 
elements. 

"Oh  the  treat  the  poor  boy  is  evidently  going 
to  stand  us  all\" — well,  was  something  that 
Davey,  rather  out  of  breath  as  they  reached  the 
lawn  again  and  came  in  sight  of  the  villa,  had 
just  yet  no  more  than  those  light  words  for.  He 
was  more  definite  in  remarking  immediately 
after  to  Cissy  that  Rosanna  would  be  as  little 
at  the  other  house  that  evening  as  she  had  been 
at  the  moment  of  his  own  visit,  and  that,  since 
the  nurses  and  other  outsiders  appeared  to  have 
dispersed,  there  would  be  no  one  to  interfere 
with  Gray's  free  welcome  of  his  friend.  The  girl 
was  so  attentive  for  this  that  it  made  them  pause 
again  while  she  brought  out  in  surprise:  "There's 
nobody  else  there,  you  mean  then,  to  watch  with 
the  dead-  -?" 

It  made  Mr.  Bradham  for  an  instant  wonder, 
Horton,  a  little  apart  from  them  now  and  with 
his  back  turned,  seeming  at  the  same  moment, 
and  whether  or  no  her  inquiry  reached  his  ear, 
struck  with  something  that  had  pulled  him  up 
as  well  and  that  made  him  stand  and  look  down 
in  thought.  "Why,  I  suppose  the  nephew  must 
be  himself  a  sort  of  watcher,"  Davey  found  him 
self  not  other  than  decently  vague  to  suggest. 

184 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

But  it  scarce  more  contented  Cissy  than  if  the 
point  had  really  concerned  her.  She  appeared 
indeed  to  question  the  more,  though  her  eyes 
were  on  Haughty's  rather  brooding  back  while 
she  did  so.  "Then  if  he  does  stay  in  the  room, 
when  he  comes  out  of  it  to  see  people—  -  ?" 

Her  very  drop  seemed  to  present  the  state  of 
things  to  which  the  poor  deceased  was  in  that 
case  left;  for  which,  however,  her  good  host  de 
clined  to  be  responsible.  "I  don't  suppose  he 
comes  out  for  so  many/' 

"He  came  out  at  any  rate  for  you."  The  .sense 
of  it  all  rather  remarkably  held  her,  and  it  might 
have  been  some  communication  of  this  that, 
overtaking  Horton  at  his  slight  distance,  deter 
mined  in  him  the  impulse  to  leave  them,  without 
more  words,  and  walk  by  himself  to  the  house. 
"We  don't  surround  such  occasions  with  any 
form  or  state  of  imagination — scarcely  with  any 
decency,  do  we?"  Cissy  adventured  while  ob 
serving  Haughty's  retreat.  "I  should  like  to 
think  for  him  of  a  catafalque  and  great  draped 
hangings — I  should  like  to  think  for  him  of  tall 
flambeaux  in  the  darkened  room,  and  of  relays 
of  watchers,  sisters  of  charity  or  suchlike,  sur 
rounding  the  grand  affair  and  counting  their 
beads." 

Davey's  rich  patience  had  a  shrug.  "The 
grand  affair,  my  dear  child,  is  their  affair,  over 
there,  and  not  mine;  though  when  you  indulge 

185 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

in  such  fancies  'for  him,J  I  can't  but  wonder  who 
it  is  you  mean." 

"Who  it  is ?"  She  mightn't  have  under 
stood  his  difficulty. 

"Why  the  dead  man  or  the  living!" 

They  had  gone  on  again;  Horton  had,  with  a 
quickened  pace,  disappeared;  and  she  had  be 
fore  answering  cast  about  over  the  fair  face  of 
the  great  house,  paler  now  in  the  ebb  of  day, 
yet  with  dressing-time  glimmers  from  upper 
windows  flushing  it  here  and  there  like  touches 
of  pink  paint  in  an  elegant  evening  complexion. 
"Oh  I  care  for  the  dead  man,  I'm  afraid,  only 
because  it's  the  living  who  appeals.  I  don't 
want  him  to  like  it." 

"To  like —  —  ?"  Davey  was  again  at  a  loss. 
"What  on  earth?" 

"Why  all  that  ugliness  and  bareness,  that 
poverty  of  form." 

He  had  nothing  but  derision  for  her  here.  "It 
didn't  occur  to  me  at  all  to  associate  him  with  the 
idea  of  poverty." 

"The  place  must  all  the  same  be  hideous,"  she 
said,  "and  the  conditions  mean— for  him  to  prowl 
about  in  alone.  It  comes  to  me,"  she  further 
risked,  "that  if  Rosanna  isn't  there,  as  you  say, 
she  quite  ought  to  be — and  that  in  her  place  I 
should  feel  it  no  more  than  decent  to  go  over  and 
sit  with  him." 

This  appeared  to  strike  Davey  in  a  splendid 
186 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

number  of  lights — which,  however,  though  col 
lectively  dazzling,  allowed  discriminations.  "It 
perhaps  bears  a  little  on  the  point  that  she  has 
herself  just  sustained  a  grave  bereavement — with 
her  offices  to  her  own  dead  to  think  of  first.  That 
was  present  to  me  in  your  talk  a  moment  since 
of  Haughty's  finding  her." 

"Very  true" — it  was  Cissy's  practice,  once 
struck,  ever  amusedly  to  play  with  the  missile: 
"it  is  of  course  extraordinary  that  those  bloated 
old  richards,  at  one  time  so  associated,  should 
have  flickered  out  almost  at  the  same  hour. 
What  it  comes  to  then,"  she  went  on,  "is  that 
Mr.  Gray  might  be,  or  perhaps  even  ought  to 
be,  condoling  over  at  the  other  house  with  her. 
However,  it's  their  own  business,  and  all  I  really 
care  for  is  that  he  should  be  so  keen  as  you  say 
about  seeing  Haughty.  I  just  delight,"  she  said, 
"in  his  being  keen  about  Haughty." 

"I'm  glad  it  satisfies  you  then,"  Davey  re 
turned — "for  I  was  on  the  point  of  suggesting 
that  with  the  sense  of  his  desolation  you  just 
expressed  you  might  judge  your  own  place  to 
be  at  once  at  his  side." 

"That  would  have  been  helpful  of  you — but 
I'm  content,  dear  Davey,"  she  smiled.  "We're 
all  devoted  to  Haughty — but,"  she  added  after 
an  instant,  "there's  just  this.  Did  Mr.  Graham 
while  you  were  there  say  by  chance  a  word  about 
the  likes  of  me*" 

187 


THE  IVORY 'TOWER 

"Well,  really,  no — our  short  talk  didn't  take 
your  direction.  That  would  have  been  for  me,  I 
confess,"  Davey  frankly  made  bold  to  add,  "a 
trifle  unexpected." 

"I  see" — Cissy  did  him  the  justice.  "But 
that's  a  little,  I  think,  because  you  don't  know 
-!"  It  was  more,  however,  than  with  her 
sigh  she  could  tell  him. 

"Don't  know  by  this  time,  my  dear,  and  after 
all  I've  been  through,"  he  nevertheless  supplied, 
"what  the  American  girl  always  so  sublimely 
takes  for  granted  ?" 

She  looked  at  him  on  this  with  intensity — but 
that  of  compassion  rather  than  of  the  conscious 
wound.  "Dear  old  Davey,  il  n'y  a  que  vous  for 
not  knowing,  by  this  time,  as  you  say,  that  I've 
notoriously  nothing  in  common  with  the  creature 
you  mention.  I  loathe,"  she  said  with  her  purest 
gentleness,  "the  American  girl." 

He  faced  her  an  instant  more  as  for  a  view  of 
the  whole  incongruity;  then  he  fetched,  on  his 
side,  a  sigh  which  might  have  signified,  at  her 
choice,  either  that  he  was  wrong  or  that  he  was 
finally  bored.  "Well,  you  do  of  course  brilliantly 
misrepresent  her.  But  we're  all" — he  hastened 
to  patch  it  up — "unspeakably  corrupt." 

"That  would  be  a  fine  lookout  for  Mr.  Fielder 
if  it  were  true,"  she  judiciously  threw  ofF. 

"But  as  you're  a  judge  you  know  it  isn't?" 

"It's  not  as  a  judge  I  know  it,  but  as  a  vic- 
188 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

tim.  I  don't  say  we  don't  do  our  best,"  she  add 
ed;  "but  we're  still  of  an  innocence,  an  inno 
cence !" 

"Then  perhaps,"  Davey  offered,  "Mr.  Fielder 
will  help  us;  unless  he  proves,  by  your  measure, 
worse  than  ourselves !" 

"The  worse  he  may  be  the  better;  for  it's  not 
possible,  as  I  see  him,"  she  said,  "that  he  doesn't 
know." 

"Know,  you  mean,"  Davey  blandly  wondered, 
"how  wrong  we  are — to  be  so  right?" 

"Know  more  on  every  subject  than  all  of  us 
put  together!"  she  called  back  at  him  as  she 
now  hurried  off  to  dress. 


IV 


HORTON  VINT,  on  being  admitted  that  evening 
at  the  late  Mr.  Betterman's,  walked  about  the 
room  to  which  he  had  been  directed  and  awaited 
there  the  friend  of  his  younger  time  very  much 
as  we  have  seen  that  friend  himself  wait  under 
stress  of  an  extraordinary  crisis.  Horton's  sense 
of  a  crisis  might  have  been  almost  equally  sharp; 
he  was  alone  for  some  minutes  during  which  he 
shifted  his  place  and  circled,  indulged  in  wide 
vague  movements  and  vacuous  stares  at  incon 
gruous  objects — the  place  being  at  once  so  spacious 
and  so  thickly  provided — quite  after  the  fashion 
in  which  Gray  Fielder's  nerves  and  imagination 
had  on  the  same  general  scene  sought  and  found 
relief  at  the  hour  of  the  finest  suspense  up  to  that 
moment  possessing  him.  Haughty  too,  it  would 
thus  have  appeared  for  the  furtherance  of  our 
interest,  had  imagination  and  nerves — had  in 
his  way  as  much  to  reflect  upon  as  we  have  al 
lowed  ourselves  to  impute  to  the  dying  Mr.  Bet 
terman's  nephew.  No  one  was  dying  now,  all 
that  was  ended,  or  would  be  after  the  funeral, 
and  the  nephew  himself  was  surely  to  be  sup 
posed  alive,  in  face  of  great  sequels,  including 
preparations  for  those  obsequies,  with  an  intensity 
beyond  all  former  experience.  This  in  fact  Hor- 

190 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

ton  had  all  the  air  of  recognising  under  proof  as 
soon  as  Gray  advanced  upon  him  with  both 
hands  out;  he  couldn't  not  have  taken  in  the 
highly  quickened  state  of  the  young  black-clad 
figure  so  presented,  even  though  soon  and  un 
mistakably  invited  to  note  that  his  own  visit 
and  his  own  presence  had  much  to  do  with  the 
Quickening.  Gray  was  in  complete  mourning, 
which  had  the  effect  of  making  his  face  show 
pale,  as  compared  with  old  aspects  of  it  remem 
bered  by  his  friend — who  was,  it  may  be  men 
tioned,  afterwards  to  describe  him  to  Cissy  Foy 
as  looking,  in  the  conditions,  these  including  the 
air  of  the  big  bedimmed  palace  room,  for  all  the 
world  like  a  sort  of  "happy  Hamlet."  For  so 
happy  indeed  our  young  man  at  once  proclaimed 
himself  at  sight  of  his  visitor,  for  so  much  the 
most  interesting  thing  that  had  befallen  or  been 
offered  him  within  the  week  did  he  take,  by  his 
immediate  testimony,  his  reunion  with  this  char 
acter  and  every  element  of  the  latter's  aspect 
and  tone,  that  the  pitch  of  his  acclamation  clearly 
had,  with  no  small  delay,  to  drop  a  little  under 
some  unavoidable  reminder  that  they  met  almost 
in  the  nearest  presence  of  death.  Was  the  re 
minder  Horton's  own,  some  pull,  for  decorum, 
of  a  longer  face,  some  expression  of  his  having 
feared  to  act  in  undue  haste  on  the  message 
brought  him  by  Davey  ? — which  might  have 
been,  we  may  say,  in  view  of  the  appearance 

191 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

after  a  little  that  it  was  Horton  rather  than  Gray 
who  began  to  suggest  a  shyness,  momentary, 
without  doubt,  and  determined  by  the  very 
plenitude  of  his  friend's  welcome,  yet  so  far  in 
congruous  as  that  it  was  not  his  adoption  of  a 
manner  and  betrayal  of  a  cheer  that  ran  the  risk 
of  seeming  a  trifle  gross,  but  quite  these  indica 
tions  on  the  part  of  the  fortunate  heir  of  the  old 
person  awaiting  interment  somewhere  above. 
He  could  only  have  seen  with  the  lapse  of  the 
moments  that  Gray  was  going  to  be  simple — ad 
mirably,  splendidly  simple,  one  would  probably 
have  pronounced  it,  in  estimating  and  comparing 
the  various  possible  dangers;  but  the  simplicity 
of  subjects  tremendously  educated,  tremendously 
"cultivated"  and  cosmopolitised,  as  Horton  would 
have  called  it,  especially  when  such  persons  were 
naturally  rather  extra-refined  and  ultra-percep 
tive,  was  a  different  affair  from  the  crude  can 
dour  of  the  common  sort;  the  consequence  of 
which  apprehensions  and  reflections  must  have 
been,  in  fine,  that  he  presently  recognised  in  the 
product  of  "exceptional  advantages"  now  already 
more  and  more  revealed  to  him  such  a  pliability 
of  accent  as  would  easily  keep  judgment,  or  at 
least  observation,  suspended.  Gray  wasn't  going 
to  be  at  a  loss  for  any  shade  of  decency  that  didn't 
depend,  to  its  inconvenience,  on  some  uncertainty 
about  a  guest's  prejudice;  so  that  once  the  air 
was  cleared  of  awkwardness  by  that  perception, 

192 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

exactly,  in  Horton's  ready  mind  that  he  and  his 
traditions,  his  susceptibilities,  in  fact  (of  all  the 
queer  things !)  his  own  very  simplicities  and, 
practically,  stupidities  were  being  superfluously 
allowed  for  and  deferred  to,  and  that  this,  only 
this,  was  the  matter,  he  should  have  been  able  to 
surrender  without  a  reserve  to  the  proposed 
measure  of  their  common  rejoicing.  Beautiful 
might  it  have  been  to  him  to  find  his  friend  so 
considerately  glad  of  him  that  the  spirit  of  it 
could  consort  to  the  last  point  with  any,  with 
every,  other  felt  weight  in  the  consciousness  so 
attested;  in  accordance  with  which  we  may  re 
mark  that  continued  embarrassment  for  our 
gallant  caller  would  have  implied  on  his  own  side, 
or  in  other  words  deep  within  his  own  spirit, 
some  obscure  source  of  confusion. 

What  distinguishably  happened  was  thus  that 
he  first  took  Graham  for  exuberant  and  then  for 
repentant,  with  the  reflection  accompanying  this 
that  he  mustn't,  to  increase  of  subsequent  shame, 
have  been  too  open  an  accomplice  in  mere  jubila 
tion.  Then  the  simple  sense  of  his  restored  com 
rade's  holding  at  his  disposal  a  general  confidence 
in  which  they  might  absolutely  breathe  together 
would  have  superseded  everything  else  hadn't  his 
individual  self-consciousness  been  perhaps  a  trifle 
worried  by  the  very  pitch  of  so  much  openness. 
Open,  not  less  generously  so,  was  what  he  could 
himself  have  but  wanted  to  be — in  proof  of  which 

193 


THE   IVORY  TOWER 

we  may  conceive  him  insist  to  the  happy  utmost, 
for  promotion  of  his  comfort,  on  those  sides  of 
their  relation  the  working  of  which  would  cast 
no  shadow.  They  had  within  five  minutes  got 
over  much  ground — all  of  which,  however,  must 
be  said  to  have  represented,  and  only  in  part, 
the  extent  of  Gray's  requisition  of  what  he  called 
just  elementary  human  help.  He  was  in  a  situa 
tion  at  which,  as  he  assured  his  friend,  he  had 
found  himself  able,  those  several  days,  but  blankly 
and  inanely  to  stare.  He  didn't  suppose  it  had 
been  his  uncle's  definite  design  to  make  an  idiot 
of  him,  but  that  seemed  to  threaten  as  the  prac 
tical  effect  of  the  dear  man's  extraordinary  course. 
"You  see,"  he  explained,  bringing  it  almost  piti 
fully  out,  "he  appears  to  have  left  me  a  most 
monstrous  fortune.  I  mean" — for  under  his  ap 
peal  Haughty  had  still  waited  a  little — "  a  really 
tremendous  lot  of  money." 

The  effect  of  the  tone  of  it  was  to  determine 
in  Haughty  a  peal  of  laughter  quickly  repressed 
—or  reduced  at  least  to  the  intention  of  decent 
cheer.  "He  'appears,'  my  dear  man?  Do  you 
mean  there's  an  ambiguity  about  his  will  ?" 

Gray  justified  his  claim  of  vagueness  by  hav 
ing,  with  his  animated  eyes  on  his  visitor's,  to 
take  an  instant  or  two  to  grasp  so  technical  an 
expression.  "No — not  an  ambiguity.  Mr.  Crick 
tells  me  that  he  has  never  in  all  his  experience 
seen  such  an  amount  of  property  disposed  of  in 

194 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

terms  so  few  and  simple  and  clear.  It  would 
seem  a  kind  of  masterpiece  of  a  will." 

"Then  what's  the  matter  with  it?"  Horton 
smiled.  "Or  at  least  what's  the  matter  with 
you  ? — who  are  so  remarkably  intelligent  and 
clever?" 

"Oh  no,  I'm  not  the  least  little  bit  clever!" 
Gray  in  his  earnestness  quite  excitedly  protested. 
"I  haven't  a  single  ray  of  the  intelligence  that 
among  you  all  here  clearly  passes  for  rudimen 
tary.  But  the  luxury  of  youy  Haughty,"  he  broke 
out  on  a  still  higher  note,  "the  luxury,  the  pure 
luxury  of  you !" 

Something  of  beauty  in  the  very  tone  of  which, 
some  confounding  force  in  the  very  clearness, 
might  it  have  been  that  made  Horton  himself 
gape  for  a  moment  even  as  Gray  had  just  de 
scribed  his  own  wit  as  gaping.  They  had  first 
sat  down,  for  hospitality  offered  and  accepted 
—though  with  no  production  of  the  smokable  or 
the  drinkable  to  profane  the  general  reference; 
but  the  agitation  of  all  that  was  latent  in  this 
itself  had  presently  broken  through,  and  by  the 
end  of  a  few  moments  we  might  perhaps  scarce 
have  been  able  to  say  whether  the  host  had  more 
set  the  guest  or  the  guest  more  the  host  in  mo 
tion.  Horton  Vint  had  everywhere  so  the  air 
of  a  prime  social  element  that  it  took  in  any  case, 
and  above  all  in  any  case  of  the  spacious  provision 
or  the  sumptuous  setting,  a  good  deal  of  practically 

I9S 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

combative  proof  to  reduce  the  implications  of  his 
presence  to  the  minor  right.  He  might  inveterately 
have  been  master  or,  in  quantitative  terms,  owner 
—so  could  he  have  been  taken  for  the  most  part 
as  offering  you  the  enjoyment  of  anything  fine 
that  surrounded  him:  this  in  proportion  to  the 
scale  of  such  matters  and  to  any  glimpse  of  that 
sense  of  them  in  you  which  was  what  came  nearest 
to  putting  you  on  his  level.  All  of  which  sprang 
doubtless  but  from  the  fact  that  his  relation  to 
things  of  expensive  interest  was  so  much  at  the 
mercy  of  his  appearance;  representing  as  it  might 
be  said  to  do  a  contradiction  of  the  law  under 
which  it  is  mostly  to  be  observed,  in  our  mod- 
ernest  conditions,  that  the  figure  least  congruous 
with  scenic  splendour  is  the  figure  awaiting  the 
reference.  More  references  than  may  here  be 
detailed,  at  any  rate,  would  Horton  have  seemed 
ready  to  gather  up  during  the  turns  he  had  re 
sumed  his  indulgence  in  after  the  original  arrest 
and  the  measurements  of  the  whole  place  prac 
tically  determined  for  him  by  Gray's  own  so 
suggestive  revolutions.  It  was  positively  now  as 
if  these  last  had  all  met,  in  their  imperfect  ex 
pression,  what  that  young  man's  emotion  was  in 
the  act  of  more  sharply  attaining  to — the  plain 
conveyance  that  if  Horton  had  in  his  friendliness, 
not  to  say  his  fidelity,  presumed  to  care  to  know, 
this  disposition  was  as  naught  beside  the  knowl 
edge  apparently  about  to  drench  him.  They 

196 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

were  there,  the  companions,  in  their  second  brief 
arrest,  with  everything  good  in  the  world  that 
he  might  have  conceived  or  coveted  just  taking 
for  him  the  radiant  form  of  precious  knowledges 
that  he  must  be  so  obliging  as  to  submit  to.  Let 
it  be  fairly  inspiring  to  us  to  imagine  the  acute-* 
ness  of  his  perception  during  these  minutes  off 
the  possibilities  of  good  involved;  the  refinement!^ 
of  pleasure  in  his  seeing  how  the  advantage  thrust 
upon  him  would  wear  the  dignity  and  grace  of{ 
his  consenting  unselfishly  to  learn — inasmuch  as,\ 
quite  evidently,  the  more  he  learnt,  and  though 
it  should  be  ostensibly  and  exclusively  about  Mr. 
Betterman's  heir,  the  more  vividly  it  all  would 
stare  at  him  as  a  marked  course  of  his  own.  Won 
derful  thus  the  little  space  of  his  feeling  the  great 
wave  set  in  motion  by  that  quiet  worthy  break 
upon  him  out  of  Gray's  face,  Gray's  voice,  Gray's 
contact  of  hands  laid  all  appealingly  and  affirm- 
ingly  on  his  shoulders,  and  then  as  it  retreated, 
washing  him  warmly  down,  expose  to  him,  off 
in  the  intenser  light  and  the  uncovered  prospect, 
something  like  his  entire  personal  future.  Some 
thing  extraordinarily  like,  yes,  could  he  but  keep 
steady  to  recognise  it  through  a  deepening  con 
sciousness,  at  the  same  time,  of  how  he  was  more 
than  matching  the  growth  of  his  friend's  need 
of  him  by  growing  there  at  once,  and  to  rankness, 
under  the  friend's  nose,  all  the  values  to  which 
this  -need  supplied  a  soil. 

197 


; 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

"Well,  I  won't  pretend  I'm  not  glad  you  don't 
adopt  me  as  pure  ornament — glad  you  see,  I 
mean,  a  few  connections  in  which  one  may  per 
haps  be  able,  as  well  as  certainly  desirous,  to  be 
of  service  to  you.  Only  one  should  honestly  tell 
you,"  Horton  went  on,  "that  people  wanting  to 
help  you  will  spring  up  round  you  like  mush 
rooms,  and  that  you'll  be  able  to  pick  and  choose 
as  even  a  king  on  his  throne  can't.  Therefore, 
my  boy,"  Haughty  said,  "don't  exaggerate  my 
modest  worth." 

Gray,  though  releasing  him,  still  looked  at  him 
hard — so  hard  perhaps  that,  having  imagination, 
he  might  in  an  instant  more  have  felt  it  go  down 
too  deep.  It  hadn't  done  that,  however,  when 
"What  I  want  of  you  above  all  is  exactly  that 
you  shall  pick  and  choose"  was  merely  what  at 
first  came  of  it.  And  the  case  was  still  all  of  the 
rightest  as  Graham  at  once  added:  "You  see 
'people'  are  exactly  my  difficulty — I'm  so  mor 
tally  afraid  of  them,  and  so  equally  sure  that 
it's  the  last  thing  you  are.  If  I  want  you  for  my 
self  I  want  you  still  more  for  others — by  which 
you  may  judge,"  said  Gray,  "that  I've  cut  you 
out  work." 

"That  you're  mortally  afraid  of  people  is,  I 
confess,"  Haughty  answered,  "news  to  me.  I 
seem  to  remember  you,  on  the  contrary,  as  so 
remarkably  and — what  was  it  we  used  to  call  it  ? 
— so  critico-analytically  interested  in  'em." 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

"That's  just  it — I  am  so  beastly  interested ! 
Don't  you  therefore  see,"  Gray  asked,  "how  I 
may  dread  the  complication?" 

"Dread  it  so  that  you  seek  to  work  it  off  on 
another?" — and  Haughty  looked  about  as  if  he 
would  after  all  have  rather  relished  a  cigarette. 

Clearly,  none  the  less,  this  awkwardness  was 
lost  on  his  friend.  "I  want  to  work  off  on  you, 
Vinty,  every  blest  thing  that  you'll  let  me;  and 
when  you've  seen  into  my  case  a  little  further 
my  reasons  will  so  jump  at  your  eyes  that  I'm 
convinced  you'll  have  patience  with  them." 

"I'm  not  then,  you  think,  too  beastly  inter 
ested  myself—  —  ?  I've  got  such  a  free  mind, 
you  mean,  and  such  a  hard  heart,  and  such  a 
record  of  failure  to  have  been  any  use  at  all  to 
myself,  that  I  must  be  just  the  person,  it  strikes 
you,  to  save  you  all  the  trouble  and  secure  you 
all  the  enjoyment?"  That  inquiry  Horton  pres 
ently  made,  but  with  an  addition  ere  Gray  could 
answer.  "My  difficulty  for  myself,  you  see,  has 
always  been  that  I  also  am  by  my  nature  too 
beastly  interested." 

"Yes" — Gray  promptly  met  it — "but  you  like 
it,  take  that  easily,  immensely  enjoy  it  and  are 
not  a  bit  afraid  of  it.  You  carry  it  off  and  you 
don't  pay  for  it." 

"Don't  you  make  anything,"  Horton  simply 
went  on,  "of  my  being  for  instance  so  uncannily 
interested  in  yourself?" 

199 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

Gray's  eyes  again  sounded  him.  "Are  you 
really  and  truly  ? — to  the  extent  of  its  not  boring 
you?"  But  with  all  he  had  even  at  the  worst 
to  take  for  granted  he  waited  for  no  reassurance. 
"  You'll  be  so  sorry  for  me  that  I  shall  wring  your 
heart  and  you'll  assist  me  for  common  pity." 

'/Well,"  Horton  returned,  a  natural  gaiety  of 
response  not  wholly  kept  under,  "how  can  I 
absurdly  make  believe  that  pitying  you,  if  it 
comes  to  that,  won't  be  enough  against  nature 
to  have  some  fascination  ?  Endowed  with  every 
advantage,  personal,  physical,  material,  moral, 
in  other  words,  brilliantly  clever,  inordinately 
rich,  strikingly  handsome  and  incredibly  good, 
your  state  yet  insists  on  being  such  as  to  nip  in 
the  bud  the  hardy  flower  of  envy.  What's  the 
matter  with  you  to  bring  that  about  would  seem, 
I  quite  agree,  well  worth  one's  looking  into— 
even  if  it  proves,  by  its  perversity  or  its  folly, 
something  of  a  trial  to  one's  practical  philosophy. 
When  I  pressed  you  some  minutes  ago  for  the 
reason  of  your  not  facing  the  future  with  *a  cer 
tain  ease  you  gave  as  that  reason  your  want 
of  education  and  wit.  But  please  understand," 
Horton  added,  "that  I've  no  time  to  waste  with 
you  on  sophistry  that  isn't  so  much  as  plausible." 
He  stopped  a  moment,  his  hands  in  his  pockets, 
his  head  thrown  all  but  extravagantly  back,  so 
that  his  considering  look  might  have  seemed  for 
the  time  to  descend  from  a  height  designed  a 

200 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

little  to  emphasise  Gray's  comparative  want  of 
stature.  That  young  man's  own  eyes  remained 
the  while,  none  the  less,  unresentfully  raised;  to 
such  an  effect  indeed  that,  after  some  duration 
of  this  exchange,  the  bigger  man's  fine  irony 
quite  visibly  shaded  into  a  still  finer,  and  withal 
frankly  kinder,  curiosity.  Poor  Gray,  with  a 
strained  face  and  an  agitation  but  half  controlled, 
breathed  quick  and  hard,  as  from  inward  pres 
sure,  and  then,  renouncing  choice — there  were 
so  many  things  to  say — shook  his  head,  slowly 
and  repeatedly,  after  a  fashion  that  discouraged 
levity.  "My  dear  boy,"  said  his  friend  under 
this  sharper  impression,  "you  do  take  it  hard/* 
Which  made  Graham  turn  away,  move  about 
in  vagueness  of  impatience  and,  still  panting  and 
still  hesitating  for  other  expression,  approach 
again,  as  from  a  blind  impulse,  the  big  chimney- 
piece,  reach  for  a  box  that  raised  a  presumption 
of  cigarettes  and,  the  next  instant,  thrust  it  out 
in  silence  at  his  visitor.  The  latter's  welcome 
of  the  motion,  his  prompt  appropriation  of  relief, 
was  also  mute;  with  which  he  found  matches  in 
advance  of  Gray's  own  notice  of  them  and  had 
a  light  ready,  of  which  our  young  man  himself 
partook,  before  the  box  went  back  to  its  shelf. 
Odd  again  might  have  been  for  a  protected  wit 
ness  of  this  scene — which  of  course  is  exactly 
what~you  are-invited  to  be — the  lapse  of  speech 
that  marked  it  for  the  several  minutes.  Horton, 

201 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

truly  touched  now,  and  to  the  finer  issue  we  have 
glanced  at,  waited  unmistakably  for  the  sign  of 
something  more  important  than  his  imagination, 
even  at  its  best,  could  give  him,  and  which,  not 
less  conceivably,  would  be  the  sort  of  thing  he 
himself  hadn't  signs,  either  actual  or  possible,  for. 
He  waited  while  they  did  the  place  at  last  the 
inevitable  small  violence — this  being  long  enough 
to  make  him  finally  say:  "Do  you  mean,  on 
your  honour,  that  you  don't  like  what  has  hap 
pened  to  you  ?" 

This  unloosed  then  for  Gray  the  gate  of  pos 
sible  expression.  "Of  course  I  like  it — that  is 
of  course  I  try  to.  I've  been  trying  here,  day 
after  day,  as  hard  as  ever  a  decent  man  can  have 
tried  for  anything;  and  yet  I  remain,  don't  you 
see  ?  a  wretched  little  worm." 

"Deary,  deary  me,"  stared  Horton,  "that  you 
should  have  to  bring  up  your  appreciation  of  it 
from  such  depths  !  You  go  in  for  it  as  you  would 
for  the  electric  light  or  the  telephone,  and  then 
find  half-way  that  you  can't  stand  the  expense 
and  want  the  next-door  man  somehow  to  com 
bine  with  you  ?" 

:< That's  exactly  it,  Vinty,  and  you're  the  next- 
door  man!" — Gray  embraced  the  analogy  with 
glee.  "I  cant  stand  the  expense,  and  yet  I  don't 
for  a  moment  deny  I  should  immensely  enjoy  the 
convenience.  I  want,"  he  asseverated,  "to  like 
my  luck.  I  want  to  go  in  for  it,  as  you  say,  with 

202 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

every  inch  of  any  such  capacity  as  I  have.  And 
I  want  to  believe  in  my  capacity;  I  want  to  work 
it  up  and  develop  it — I  assure  you  on  my  honour 
I  do.  I've  lashed  myself  up  into  feeling  that  if 
I  don't  I  shall  be  a  base  creature,  a  worm  of 
worms,  as  I  say,  and  fit  only  to  be  utterly  ashamed. 
But  that's  where  you  come  in.  You'll  help  me 
to  develop.  To  develop  my  capacity  I  mean," 
he  explained  with  a  wondrous  candour. 

Horton  was  now,  small  marvel,  all  clear  faith; 
even,  the  cigarettes  helping,  to  the  verge  again  of 
hilarity.  "Your  capacity — I  see.  Not  so  much 
your  property  itself." 

"Well" — Gray  considered  of  it — "what  will 
my  property  be  except  my  capacity?"  He  spoke 
really  as  for  the  pleasure  of  seeing  very  finely  and 
very  far.  "It  won't  if  I  don't  like  it,  that  is  if  I 
don't  understand  it,  don't  you  see  ?  enough  to 
make  it  count.  Yes,  yes,  don't  revile  me,"  he 
almost  feverishly  insisted:  "I  do  want  it  to 
count  for  all  it's  worth,  and  to  get  everything 
out  of  it,  to  the  very  last  drop  of  interest,  plea 
sure,  experience,  whatever  you  may  call  it,  that 
such  a  possession  can  yield.  And  I'm  going  to 
keep  myself  up  to  it,  to  the  top  of  the  pitch,  by 
every  art  and  prop,  by  every  helpful  dodge,  that 
I  can  put  my  hand  on.  You  see  if  I  don't.  I 
breathe  defiance,"  he  continued,  with  his  rare 
radiance,  "at  any  suspicion  or  doubt.  But  I 
come  back,"  he  had  to  add,  "to  my  point 

203 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 
that    it's    you    that    I    essentially    most    depend 


on." 


Horton  again  looked  at  him  long  and  frankly; 
this  subject  of  appeal  might  indeed  for  the  mo 
ment  have  been  as  embarrassed  between  the  vari 
ous  requisitions  of  response  as  Gray  had  just 
before  shown  himself.  But  as  the  tide  could 
surge  for  one  of  the  pair  so  it  could  surge  for  the 
other,  and  the  large  truth  of  what  Horton  most 
grasped  appeared  as  soon  as  he  had  spoken. 
"The  name  of  your  complaint,  you  poor  dear 
delightful  person,  or  the  name  at  least  of  your 
necessity,  your  predicament  and  your  solution,  is 
marriage  to  a  wife  at  short  order.  I  mean  of 
course  to  an  amiable  one.  There,  so  obviously, 
is  your  aid  and  your  prop,  there  are  the  sources 
of  success  for  interest  in  your  fortune,  and  for 
the  whole  experience  and  enjoyment  of  it,  as  you 
can't  find  them  elsewhere.  What  are  you  but 
just  *  fixed'  to  marry,  and  what  is  the  sense  of 
your  remarks  but  a  more  or  less  intelligent  clam 
our  for  it?" 

Triumphant  indeed,  as  we  have  said,  for  lucid 
ity  and  ease,  was  this  question,  and  yet  it  had 
filled  the  air,  for  its  moment,  but  to  drop  at  once 
by  the  practical  puncture  of  Gray's  perfect  recog 
nition.  "Oh  of  course  I've  thought  of  that — but 
it  doesn't  meet  my  case  at  all."  Had  he  been 
capable  of  disappointment  in  his  friend  he  might 
almost  have  been  showing  it  now. 

204 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

Horton  had,  however,  no  heat  about  it.  "You 
mean  you  absolutely  don't  want  a  wife — in  con 
nection,  so  to  speak,  with  your  difficulties;  or  with 
the  idea,  that  is,  of  their  being  resolved  into 
blessings  ? " 

"Well" — Gray  was  here  at  least  all  prompt 
and  clear — "I  keep  down,  in  that  matter,  so  much 
as  I  can  any  a  priori  or  mere  theoretic  want. 
I  see  my  possibly  marrying  as  an  effect,  I  mean 
—I  somehow  don't  see  it  at  all  as  a  cause.  A 
cause,  that  is" — he  easily  worked  it  out — "of 
my  getting  other  things  right.  It  may  be,  in 
conditions,  the  greatest  rightness  of  all;  but  I 
want  to  be  sure  of  the  conditions." 

"The  first  of  which  is,  I  understand  then" 
for  this  at  least  had  been  too  logical  for  Haughty 
not  to  have  to  match  it — "that  you  should  fall 
so  tremendously  in  love  that  you  won't  be  able 
to  help  yourself." 

Graham  just  debated;  he  was  all  intelligence 
here.  "Falling  tremendously  in  love — the  way 
you  grands  amoureux  talk  of  such  things !" 

"Where  do  you  find,  my  boy,"  Horton  asked, 
"that  I'm  a  grand  amoureux?" 

Well,  Gray  had  but  to  consult  his  memory  of 
their  young  days  together;  there  was  the  admis 
sion,  under  pressure,  that  he  might  have  confused 
the  appearances.  "They  were  at  any  rate  always 
up  and  at  you — which  seems  to  have  left  me  with 
the  impression  that  your  life  is  full  of  them." 

205 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

"Every  man's  life  is  full  of  them  that  has  a 
door  or  a  window  they  can  come  in  by.  But  the 
question's  of  yourself,"  said  Haughty,  "and  just 
exactly  of  the  number  of  such  that  you'll  have 
to  keep  open  or  shut  in  the  immense  fa9ade  you'll 
now  present." 

Our  young  man  might  well  have  struck  him 
as  before  all  else  inconsequent.  "I  shall  present 
an  immense  fa£ade?" — Gray,  from  his  tone  of 
surprise,  to  call  it  nothing  more,  would  have 
thought  of  this  for  the  first  time. 

But  Horton  just  hesitated.  "You've  great 
ideas  if  you  see  it  yourself  as  a  small  one." 

"I  don't  see  it  as  any.  I  decline,"  Gray  re 
marked,  "to  have  a  facade.  And  if  I  don't  I 
shan't  have  the  windows  and  doors." 

"You've  got  'em  already,  fifty  in  a  row" — 
Haughty  was  remorseless — "and  it  isn't  a 
question  of  'having':  you  are  a  facade;  stretch 
ing  a  mile  right  and  left.  How  can  you  not 
be  when  I'm  walking  up  and  down  in  front  of 
you?" 

"Oh  you  walk  up  and  down,  you  make  the 
things  you  pass,  and  you  can  behave  of  course 
if  you  want  like  one  of  the  giants  in  uniform, 
outside  the  big  shops,  who  attend  the  ladies  in 
and  out.  In  fact,"  Gray  went  on,  "I  don't  in 
the  least  judge  that  I  am,  or  can  be  at  all  ad 
vertised  as,  one  of  the  really  big.  You  seem  all 
here  so  hideously  rich  that  I  needn't  fear  to  count 

206 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

as  extraordinary;  indeed  I'm  very  competently 
assured  I'm  by  all  your  standards  a  very  mod 
erate  affair.  And  even  if  I  were  a  much  greater 
one" — he  gathered  force — "my  appearance  of  it 
would  depend  only  on  myself.  You  can  have 
means  and  not  be  blatant;  you  can  take  up,  by 
the  very  fact  itself,  if  you  happen  to  be  decent, 
no  more  room  than  may  suit  your  taste.  I'll  be 
hanged  if  I  consent  to  take  up  an  inch  more  than 
suits  mine.  Even  though  not  of  the  truly  bloated 
I've  at  least  means  to  be  quiet.  Every  one  among 
us — I  mean  among  the  moneyed — isn't  a  monster 
on  exhibition."  In  proof  of  which  he  abounded. 
"I  know  people  myself  who  aren't." 

Horton  considered  him  with  amusement,  as 
well  apparently  as  the  people  that  he  knew! 
"Of  course  you  may  dig  the  biggest  hole  in  the 
ground  that  ever  was  dug — spade-work  comes 
'high,  but  you'll  have  the  means — and  get  down 
into  it  and  sit  at  the  very  bottom.  Only  your 
hole  will  become  then  the  feature  of  the  scene, 
and  we  shall  crowd  a  thousand  deep  all  round 
the  edge  of  it." 

Gray  stood  for  a  moment  looking  down,  then 
faced  his  guest  as  with  a  slight  effort.  "Do  you 
know  about  Rosanna  Gaw?"  And  then  while 
Horton,  for  reasons  of  his  own,  failed  at  once  to 
answer:  "She  has  come  in  for  millions— 

"Twenty-two  and  a  fraction,"  Haughty  said 
at  once.  "Do  you  mean  that  she  sits,  like  Truth, 

207 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

at  the  bottom  of  a  well?"  he  asked  still  more 
divertedly. 

Gray  had  a  sharp  gesture.  "If  there's  a  person 
in  the  world  whom  I  don't  call  a  fa9ade—  -!" 

"You  don't  call  her  one  ?"— Haughty  took  it 
right  up.  And  he  added  as  for  very  compassion: 
"My  poor  man,  my  poor  man !" 

"She  loathes  self-exhibition;  she  loathes  being 
noticed;  she  loathes  every  form  of  publicity." 
Gray  quite  flushed  for  it. 

Horton  went  to  the  mantel  for  another  cigar 
ette,  and  there  was  that  in  the  calm  way  of  it 
that  made  his  friend,  even  though  helping  him 
this  time  to  a  light,  wait  in  silence  for  his  word. 
"She  does  more  than  that" — it  was  brought  quite 
dryly  out.  "She  loathes  every  separate  dollar 
she  possesses." 

Gray's  sense  of  the  matter,  strenuous  though 
it  was,  could  just  stare  at  this  extravagance  of 
assent;  seeing  however,  on  second  thoughts,  what 
there  might  be  in  it.  "Well  then  if  what  I  have 
is  a  molehill  beside  her  mountain,  I  can  the  more 
easily  emulate  her  in  standing  back." 

"What  you  have  is  a  molehill?"  Horton  was 
concerned  to  inquire. 

Gray  showed  a  shade  of  guilt,  but  faced  his 
judge.  "Well—so  I  gather." 

The  judge  at  this  lost  patience.  "Am  I  to 
understand  that  you  positively  cultivate  vague 
ness  and  water  it  with  your  tears  ?" 

208 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

"Yes" — the  culprit  was  at  least  honest — "I 
should  rather  say  I  do.  And  I  want  you  to  let 
me.  Do  let  me." 

"It's  apparently  more  then  than  Miss  Gaw 
does !" 

"Yes" — Gray  again  considered;  "she  seems 
to  know  more  or  less  what  she's  worth,  and  she 
tells  me  that  I  can't  even  begin  to  approach  it." 

"Very  crushing  of  her!"  his  friend  laughed. 
"You  'make  the  pair',  as  they  say,  and  you 
must  help  each  other  much.  Her  *  loathing'  it 
exactly  is — since  we  know  all  about  it ! — that 
gives  her  a  frontage  as  wide  as  the  Capitol  at 
Washington.  Therefore  your  comparison  proves 
little — though  I  confess  it  would  rather  help 
us,"  Horton  pursued,  "if  you  could  seem,  as  you 
say,  to  have  asked  one  or  two  of  the  questions 
that  I  should  suppose  would  have  been  open  to 
you." 

"Asked  them  of  Mr.  Crick,  you  mean  ?" 

"Well,  yes — if  you've  nobody  else,  and  as  you 
appear  not  to  have  been  able  to  have  cared  to 
look  at  the  will  yourself." 

Something  like  a  light  of  hope,  at  this,  kindled 
in  Gray's  face.  "Would  you  care  to  look  at  it, 
Vinty?" 

The  inquiry  gave  Horton  pause.  "Look  at  it 
now,  you  mean  ? " 

"Well — whenever  you  like.  I  think,"  said 
Gray,  "it  must  be  in  the  house." 

209 


THE   IVORY  TOWER 

"You're  not  sure  even  of  that  ?"  his  companion 
wailed. 

"Oh  I  know  there  are  two" — our  young  man 
had  coloured.  "I  don't  mean  different  ones,  but 
copies  of  the  same,"  he  explained;  "one  of  which 
Mr.  Crick  must  have." 

"And  the  other  of  which" — Horton  pieced 
it  together — "is  the  one  you  offer  to  show  me?" 

"Unless,  unless—  -!"  and  Gray,  casting  about, 
bethought  himself.  "Unless  that  one—  -!" 
With  his  eyes  on  his  friend's  he  still  shamelessly 
wondered. 

"Unless  that  one  has  happened  to  get  lost," 
Horton  tenderly  suggested,  "so  that  you  can't 
after  all  produce  it?" 

"No,  but  it  may  be  upstairs,  upstairs " 

Gray  continued  to  turn  this  over.  "I  think  it 
is,"  he  then  recognised,  "where  I  had  perhaps 
better  not  just  now  disturb  it." 

His  recognition  was  nothing,  apparently,  how 
ever,  to  the  clear  quickness  of  Horton's.  "It's 
in  your  uncle's  own  room  ? " 

"The  room,"  Gray  assented,  "where  he  lies 
in  death  while  we  talk  here."  This,  his  tone 
suggested,  sufficiently  enjoined  delay. 

Horton's  concurrence  was  immediately  such 
that,  once  more  turning  off,  he  measured,  for 
the  intensity  of  it,  half  the  room.  "I  can't  ad 
vise  you  without  the  facts  that  ytm're  unable  to 
give,"  he  said  as  he  came  back,  "but  I  don't 

210 


THE   IVORY  TOWER 

indeed  invite  you  to  go  and  rummage  in  that 
presence."  He  might  have  exhaled  the  faintest 
irony,  save  that  verily  by  this  time,  between  these 
friends — by  which  I  mean  of  course  as  from  one 
of  them  only,  the  more  generally  assured,  to  the 
other — irony  would,  to  an  at  all  exhaustive  analy 
sis,  have  been  felt  to  flicker  in  their  medium. 
Gray  might  in  fact,  on  the  evidence  of  his  next 
words,  have  found  it  just  distinguishable. 


211 


do  talk  here  while  he  lies  in  death"- 
they  had  in  fine  all  serenity  for  it.  "But  the 
extraordinary  thing  is  that  my  putting  myself 
this  way  at  my  ease — and  for  that  matter  putting 
you  at  yours — is  exactly  what  the  dear  man 
made  to  me  the  greatest  point  of.  I  haven't  the 
shade  of  a  sense,  and  don't  think  I  ever  shall 
have,  of  not  doing  what  he  wanted  of  me;  for 
what  he  wanted  of  me,"  our  particular  friend 
continued,  "is — well,  so  utterly  unconventional. 
He  would  like  my  being  the  right  sort  of  well- 
meaning  idiot  that  you  catch  me  in  the  very 
fact  of.  I  warned  him,  I  sincerely,  passionately 
warned  him,  that  I'm  not  fit,  in  the  smallest  de 
gree,  for  the  use,  for  the  care,  for  even  the  most 
rudimentary  comprehension,  of  a  fortune;  and 
that  exactly  it  was  which  seemed  most  to  settle 
him.  He  wanted  me  clear,  to  the  last  degree, 
not  only  of  the  financial  brain,  but  of  any  sort 
of  faint  germ  of  the  money-sense  whatever — 
down  to  the  very  lack  of  power,  if  he  might  be 
so  happy  (or  if  /  might !)  to  count  up  to  ten  on 
my  fingers.  Satisfied  of  the  limits  of  my  arith 
metic  he  passed  away  in  bliss." 

To  this,   as   fairly  lucid,   Horton  had   applied 
his  understanding.    "You  can't  count  up  to  ten  ?" 

212 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

"Not  all  the  way.  Still,"  our  young  man 
smiled,  "the  greater  inspiration  may  now  give 
me  the  lift." 

His  guest  looked  as  if  one  might  by  that  time 
almost  have  doubted.  But  it  was  indeed  an  ex 
traordinary  matter.  "How  comes  it  then  that 
your  want  of  arithmetic  hasn't  given  you  a  want 
of  order  ? — unless  indeed  I'm  mistaken  and  you 
were  perhaps  at  sixes  and  sevens?" 

"Well,  I  think  I  was  at  sixes — though  I  never 
got  up  to  sevens !  I've  never  had  the  least  rule 
or  method;  but  that  has  been  a  sort  of  thing  I 
could  more  or  less  cover  up — from  others,  I  mean, 
not  from  myself,  who  have  always  been  help 
lessly  ashamed  of  it.  It  hasn't  been  the  disorder 
of  extravagance,"  Gray  explained,  "but  the 
much  more  ignoble  kind,  the  wasteful  thrift  that 
doesn't  really  save,  that  simply  misses,  and  that 
neither  enjoys  things  themselves  nor  enjoys  their 
horrid  little  equivalent  of  hoarded  pence.  I 
haven't  needed  to  count  far,  the  fingers  of  one 
hand  serving  for  my  four  or  five  possessions; 
and  also  I've  kept  straight  not  by  taking  no 
liberties  with  my  means,  but  by  taking  none 
with  my  understanding  of  them.  From  fear  of 
counting  wrong,  and  from  loathing  of  the  act 
of  numerical  calculation,  and  of  the  humiliation 
of  having  to  give  it  up  after  so  few  steps  from 
the  start,  I've  never  counted  at  all — and  that, 
you  see,  is  what  has  saved  me.  That  has  been 

213 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

my  sort  of  disorder — which  you'll  agree  is  the 
most  pitiful  of  all." 

Horton  once  more  turned  away  from  him,  but 
slowly  this  time,  not  in  impatience,  rather  with 
something  of  the  preoccupation  of  a  cup-bearer 
whose  bowl  has  been  filled  to  the  brim  and  who 
must  carry  it  a  distance  with  a  steady  hand.  So 
for  a  minute  or  two  might  he  have  been  taking 
this  care;  at  the  end  of  which,  however,  Gray 
saw  him  stop  in  apparent  admiration  before  a 
tall  inlaid  and  brass-bound  French  bahut',  with 
the  effect,  after  a  further  moment,  of  a  sharp 
break  of  their  thread  of  talk.  "You've  got  some 
things  here  at  least  to  enjoy  and  that  you  ought 
to  know  how  to  keep  hold  of;  though  I  don't 
so  much  mean,"  he  explained,  "this  expensive 
piece  of  furniture  as  the  object  of  interest  perched 
on  top." 

"Oh  the  ivory  tower! — yes,  isn't  that,  Vinty, 
a  prize  piece  and  worthy  of  the  lovely  name  ? " 

Vinty  remained  for  the  time  all  admiration, 
having,  as  you  would  easily  have  seen,  lights 
enough  to  judge  by.  "It  appears  to  have  been 
your  uncle's  only  treasure — as  everything  else 
about  you  here  is  of  a  newness !  And  it  isn't  so 
much  too  small,  Gray,"  he  laughed,  "for  you 
to  get  into  it  yourself,  when  you  want  to  get 
rid  of  us,  and  draw  the  doors  to.  If  it's  a 
symbol  of  any  retreat  you  really  have  an  eye  on 
I  much  congratulate  you;  I  don't  know  what 

214 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 
I  wouldn't  give  myself  for  the  'run*  of  an  ivory 


tower." 


"Well,  I  can't  ask  you  to  share  mine,"  Gray 
returned;  "for  the  situation  to  have  a  sense,  I 
take  it,  one  must  sit  in  one's  tower  alone.  And 
I  should  properly  say,"  he  added  after  an  hesi 
tation,  "that  mine  is  the  one  object,  all  round 
me  here,  that  I  don't  owe  my  uncle:  it  has  been 
placed  at  my  disposition,  in  the  handsomest  way 
in  the  world,  by  Rosanna  Gaw." 

"Ah  that  does  increase  the  interest — even  if 
susceptible  of  seeming  to  mean,  to  one's  bewilder 
ment,  that  it's  the  sort  of  thing  she  would  like 
to  thrust  you  away  into;  which  I  hope,  however, 
is  far  from  the  case.  Does  she  then  keep  ivory 
towers,  a  choice  assortment?"  Horton  quite 
gaily  continued;  "in  the  sense  of  having  a  row 
of  them  ready  for  occupation,  and  with  tenants 
to  match  perchable  in  each  and  signalling  along 
the  line  from  summit  to  summit  ?  Because"- 
and,  facing  about  from  his  contemplation,  he 
piled  up  his  image  even  as  the  type  of  object 
represented  by  it  might  have  risen  in  the  air — 
"you  give  me  exactly,  you  see,  the  formula  of 
that  young  lady  herself:  perched  aloft  in  an  ivory 
tower  is  what  she  is,  and  I'll  be  hanged  if  this 
isn't  a  hint  to  you  to  mount,  yourself,  into  just 
such  another;  under  the  same  provocation,  I 
fancy  her  pleading,  as  she  has  in  her  own  case 
taken  for  sufficient."  Thus  it  was  that,  suddenly 

215 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

more  brilliant  than  ever  yet,  to  Graham's  ap 
prehension,  you  might  well  have  guessed,  his 
friend  stood  nearer  again — stood  verily  quite 
irradiating  responsive  ingenuity.  Markedly  would 
it  have  struck  you  that  at  such  instants  as  this, 
most  of  all,  the  general  hush  that  was  so  thick 
about  them  pushed  upward  and  still  further 
upward  the  fine  flower  of  the  inferential.  Follow 
ing  the  pair  closely  from  the  first,  and  beginning 
perhaps  with  your  idea  that  this  life  of  the  in 
telligence  had  its  greatest  fineness  in  Gray  Fielder, 
you  would  by  now,  I  dare  say,  have  been  brought 
to  a  more  or  less  apprehensive  foretaste  of  its 
possibilities  in  our  other  odd  agent.  For  how 
couldn't  it  have  been  to  the  full  stretch  of  his 
elastic  imagination  that  Haughty  was  drawn  out 
by  the  time  of  his  putting  a  certain  matter  beau 
tifully  to  his  companion?  "Don't  I,  'gad,  take 
the  thing  straight  over  from  you — all  of  it  you've 
been  trying  to  convey  to  me  here ! — when  I  see 
you,  up  in  the  blue,  behind  your  parapet,  just 
gracefully  lean  over  and  call  down  to  where  I 
mount  guard  at  your  door  in  the  dust  and  com 
parative  darkness  ?  It's  well  to  understand"- 
his  thumbs  now  in  his  waistcoat-holes  he  measured 
his  idea  as  if  Gray's  own  face  fairly  reflected  it: 
"you  want  me  to  take  all  the  trouble  for  you 
simply,  in  order  that  you  may  have  all  the  fun. 
And  you  want  me  at  the  same  time,  in  order  that 
things  shall  be  for  you  at  their  ideal  of  the  easiest, 

216 


THE   IVORY  TOWER 

to  make  you  believe,  as  a  salve  to  your  conscience, 
that  the  fun  isn't  so  mixed  with  the  trouble  as 
that  you  can't  have  it,  on  the  right  arrangement 
made  with  me,  quite  by  itself.  This  is  most  in 
genious  of  you,"  Horton  added,  "but  it  doesn't 
in  the  least  show  me,  don't  you  see  ?  where  my 
fun  comes  in." 

"I  wonder  if  I  can  do  that,"  Gray  returned, 
"without  making  you  understand  first  some 
thing  of  the  nature  of  mine — or  for  that  mat 
ter  without  my  first  understanding  myself 
perhaps  what  my  queer  kind  of  it  is  most  likely 
to  be." 

His  companion  showed  withal  for  more  and 
more  ready  to  risk  amused  recognitions.  "You 
are  'rum'  with  your  queer  kinds,  and  might  make 
my  flesh  creep,  in  these  conditions,  if  it  weren't 
for  something  in  me  of  rude  pluck."  Gray,  in 
speaking,  had  moved  towards  the  great  French 
meuble  with  some  design  upon  it  or  upon  the 
charge  it  carried;  which  Horton's  eyes  just  won- 
deringly  noted — and  to  the  effect  of  an  exaggera 
tion  of  tone  in  his  next  remark.  "However,  there 
are  assurances  one  doesn't  keep  repeating:  it's 
so  little  in  me,  I  feel,  to  refuse  you  any  service 
I'm  capable  of,  no  matter  how  clumsily,  that  if 
you  take  me  but  confidently  enough  for  the  agent 
even  of  your  unholiest  pleasures,  you'll  find  me 
still  putting  them  through  for  you  when  you've 
broken  down  in  horror  yourself." 

217 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

"Of  course  it's  my  idea  that  whatever  I  ask 
you  shall  be  of  interest  to  you,  and  of  the  liveliest, 
in  itself — quite  apart  from  any  virtue  of  my  con 
nection  with  it.  If  it  speaks  to  you  that  way  so 
much  the  better/'  Gray  went  on,  standing  now 
before  the  big  bahut  with  both  hands  raised  and 
resting  on  the  marble  top.  This  lifted  his  face 
almost  to  the  level  of  the  base  of  his  perched 
treasure — so  that  he  stared  at  the  ivory  tower 
without  as  yet  touching  it.  He  only  continued 
to  talk,  though  with  his  thought,  as  he  brought 
out  the  rest  of  it,  almost  superseded  by  the  new 
preoccupation.  "I  shall  absolutely  decline  any 
good  of  anything  that  isn't  attended  by  some 
equivalent  or — what  do  you  call  it  ? — propor 
tionate  good  for  you.  I  shall  propose  to  you  a 
percentage,  if  that's  the  right  expression,  on 
every  blest  benefit  I  get  from  you  in  the  way  of 
the  sense  of  safety."  Gray  now  moved  his  hands, 
laying  them  as  in  finer  fondness  to  either  smoothly- 
plated  side  of  the  tall  repository,  against  which 
a  finger  or  two  caressingly  rubbed.  His  back 
turned  therefore  to  Horton,  he  was  divided  be 
tween  the  growth  of  his  response  to  him  and 
that  of  this  more  sensible  beauty.  "Don't  I 
kind  of  insure  my  life,  my  moral  consciousness, 
I  mean,  for  your  advantage  ? — or  with  you,  as 
it  were,  taking  you  for  the  officeman  or  actuary, 
if  I'm  not  muddling:  to  whom  I  pay  a  handsome 
premium  for  the  certainty  of  there  being  to  my 

218 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

credit,  on  my  demise,  a  sufficient  sum  to  clear 
off  my  debts  and  bury  me." 

"  You  propose  to  me  a  handsome  premium  ? 
Catch  me,"  Horton  laughed,  "not  jumping  at 
that  I" 

"Yes,  and  you'll  of  course  fix  the  premium 
yourself."  But  Gray  was  now  quite  detached, 
occupied  only  in  opening  his  ivory  doors  with 
light  fingers  and  then  playing  these  a  little,  whether 
for  hesitation  or  for  the  intenser  pointing  of  in 
quiry,  up  and  down  the  row  of  drawers  so  exposed. 
Against  the  topmost  they  then  rested  a  moment 
— drawing  out  this  one,  however,  with  scant 
further  delay  and  enabling  themselves  to  feel 
within  and  so  become  possessed  of  an  article  con 
tained.  It  was  with  this  article  in  his  hand  that 
he  presently  faced  about  again,  turning  it  over, 
resting  his  eyes  on  it  and  then  raising  them  to 
his  visitor,  who  perceived  in  it  a  heavy  letter, 
duly  addressed,  to  all  appearance,  but  not  stamped 
and  as  yet  unopened.  r'The  distinguished  re 
treat,  you  see,  has  its  tenant." 

"Do  you  mean  by  its  tenant  the  author  of 
those  evidently  numerous  pages  ? — unless  you 
rather  mean,"  Horton  asked,  "that  you  seal  up 
in  packets  the  love-letters  addressed  to  you  and 
find  that  charming  receptacle  a  congruous  place 
to  keep  them  ?  Is  there  a  packet  in  every  drawer, 
and  do  you  take  them  out  this  way  to  remind 
yourself  fondly  that  you  have  them  and  that  it 

219 


THE   IVORY  TOWER 

mayn't  be  amiss  for*me  to  feel  your  conquests 
and  their  fine  old  fragrance  dangled  under  my 
nose?" 

Our  young  man,  at  these  words,  had  but  re 
turned  to  the  consideration  of  his  odd  property, 
attaching  it  first  again  to  the  superscription  and 
then  to  the  large  firm  seal.  "I  haven't  the  least 
idea  what  this  is;  and  I'm  divided  in  respect  of 
it,  I  don't  mind  telling  you,  between  curiosity 
and  repulsion." 

Horton  then  also  eyed  the  ambiguity,  but  at 
his  discreet  distance  and  reaching  out  for  it  as 
little  as  his  friend  surrendered  it.  "Do  you  ap 
peal  to  me  by  chance  to  help  you  to  decide  either 
way?" 

Poor  Gray,  still  wondering  and  fingering,  had 
a  long  demur.  "No — I  don't  think  I  want  to 
decide."  With  which  he  again  faced  criticism. 
"The  extent,  Vinty,  to  which  I  think  I  must 
just  like  to  drift — 

Vinty  seemed  for  a  moment  to  give  this  in 
dicated  quantity  the  attention  invited  to  it,  but 
without  more  action  for  the  case  than  was  rep 
resented  by  his  next  saying:  "Why  then  do  you 
produce  your  question — apparently  so  much  for 
my  benefit  ?" 

"Because  in  the  first  place  you  noticed  the 
place  it  lurks  in,  and  because  in  the  second  I  like 
to  tell  you  things." 

This  might  have  struck  us  as  making  the  strained 
220 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

note  in  Vinty's  smile  more  marked.  "But  that's 
exactly,  confound  you,  what  you  dont  do !  Here 
have  I  been  with  you  half  an  hour  without  your 
practically  telling  me  anything!" 

Graham,  very  serious,  stood  a  minute  looking 
at  him  hard;  succeeding  also  quite  it  would  seem 
in  taking  his  words  not  in  the  least  for  a  reproach 
but  for  a  piece  of  information  of  the  greatest 
relevance,  and  thus  at  once  dismissing  any  minor 
importance.  He  turned  back  with  his  minor 
importance  to  his  small  open  drawer,  laid  it  with 
in  again  and,  pushing  the  drawer  to,  closed  the 
doors  of  the  cabinet.  The  act  disposed  of  the 
letter,  but  had  the  air  of  introducing  as  definite 
a  statement  as  Horton  could  have  dreamt  of. 
"It's  a  bequest  from  Mr.  Gaw." 

"A  bequest" — Horton  wondered — "of  bank 
notes?" 

"No— it's  a  letter  addressed  to  me  just  before 
his  death,  handed  me  by  his  daughter,  to  whom 
he  intrusted  it,  and  not  likely,  I  think,  to  contain 
money.  He  was  then  sure,  apparently,  of  my 
coming  in  for  money;  and  even  if  he  hadn't  been 
would  have  had  no  ground  on  earth  for  leaving 
me  anything." 

Horton's  visible  interest  was  yet  consonant 
with  its  waiting  a  little  for  expression.  "He 
leaves  you  the  great  Rosanna." 

Graham,  at  this,  had  a  stare,  followed  by  a  flush 
as  the  largest  possible  sense  of  it  came  out.  "You 

221 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

suppose  it  perhaps  the  expression  of  a  wish ?" 

And  then  as  Horton  forbore  at  first  as  to  what 
he  supposed:  "A  wish  that  I  may  find  confidence 
to  apply  to  his  daughter  for  her  hand  ?" 

"That  hasn't  occurred  to  you  before  ?"  Horton 
asked — "nor  the  measure  of  the  confidence  sug 
gested  been  given  you  by  the  fact  of  your  receiv 
ing  the  document  from  Rosanna  herself?  You 
do  give  me,  you  extraordinary  person,"  he  gaily 
proceeded,  "as  good  opportunities  as  I  could  pos 
sibly  desire  to  'help*  you!" 

Graham,  for  all  the  felicity  of  this,  needed  but 
an  instant  to  think.  "I  have  it  from  Miss  Gaw 
herself  that  she  hasn't  an  idea  of  what  the  letter 
contains — any  more  than  she  has  the  least  desire 
that  I  shall  for  the  present  open  it." 

"Well,  mayn't  that  very  attitude  in  her  rather 
point  to  a  suspicion?"  was  his  guest's  ingenious 
reply.  "Nothing  could  be  less  like  her  certainly 
than  to  appear  in  such  a  case  to  want  to  force 
your  hand.  It  makes  her  position — with  exqui 
site  filial  piety,  you  see — extraordinarily  delicate." 

Prompt  as  that  might  be,  Gray  appeared  to 
show,  no  sportive  sophistry,  however  charming, 
could  work  upon  him.  "Why  should  Mr.  Gaw 
want  me  to  marry  his  daughter  ? " 

Horton  again  hung  about  a  little.  "Why 
should  you  be  so  afraid  of  ascertaining  his  idea 
that  you  don't  so  much  as  peep  into  what  he 
writes  on  the  subject  ? " 

222 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

"Afraid?  Am  I  afraid?"  Gray  fairly  spoke 
with  a  shade  of  the  hopeful,  as  if  even  that  would 
be  richer  somehow  than  drifting. 

"Well,  you  looked  at  your  affair  just  now  as 
you  might  at  some  small  dangerous,  some  biting 
or  scratching,  animal  whom  you're  not  at  all  sure 
of." 

"And  yet  you  see  I  keep  him  about." 

"Yes — you  keep  him  in  his  cage,  for  which  I 
suppose  you  have  a  key." 

"I  have  indeed  a  key,  a  charming  little  golden 
key."  With  which  Gray  took  another  turn;  once 
more  facing  criticism,  however,  to  say  with  force: 
"He  hated  him  most  awfully!" 

Horton  appeared  to  wonder.  "Your  uncle 
hated  oldGaw?" 

"No — I  don't  think  he  cared.  I  speak  of  Mr. 
Gaw's  own  animus.  He  disliked  so  mortally  his 
old  associate,  the  man  who  lies  dead  upstairs — 
and  in  spite  of  my  consideration  for  him  I  still 
preserve  his  record." 

"How  do  you  know  about  his  hate,"  Horton 
asked,  "or  if  your  letter,  since  you  haven't  read 
it,  is  a  record  ? " 

"Well,  I  don't  trust  it — I  mean  not  to  be.  I 
don't  see  what  else  he  could  have  written  me 
about.  Besides,"  Gray  added,  "I've  my  per 
sonal  impression." 

"Of  old  Gaw  ?     You  have  seen  him  then  ?" 

"I  saw  him  out  there  on  this  verandah,  where 
223 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

he  was  hovering  in  the  most  extraordinary  fashion, 
a  few  hours  before  his  death.  It  was  only  for  a 
few  minutes,"  Gray  said — "but  they  were  minutes 
I  shall  never  forget." 

Horton's  interest,  though  so  deeply  engaged, 
was  not  unattended  with  perplexity.  "You  mean 
he  expressed  to  you  such  a  feeling  at  such  an 
hour?" 

"He  expressed  to  me  in  about  three  minutes, 
without  speech,  to  which  it  seemed  he  couldn't 
trust  himself,  as  much  as  it  might  have  taken 
him,  or  taken  anyone  else,  to  express  in  three 
months  at  another  time  and  on  another  subject. 
If  you  ever  yourself  saw  him,"  Gray  went  on, 
"perhaps  you'll  understand." 

"Oh  I  often  saw  him — and  should  indeed  in 
your  place  perhaps  have  understood.  I  never 
heard  him  accused  of  not  making  people  do  so. 
But  you  hold,"  said  Horton,  "that  he  must  have 
backed  up  for  you  further  the  mystic  revelation  ?" 

"He  had  written  before  he  saw  me — written 
on  the  chance  of  my  being  a  person  to  be  affected 
by  it;  and  after  seeing  me  he  didn't  destroy  or 
keep  back  his  message,  but  emphasised  his  wish 
for  a  punctual  delivery." 

"By  which  it  is  evident,"  Horton  concluded, 
"that  you  struck  him  exactly  as  such  a  person." 

"He  saw  me,  by  my  idea,  as  giving  my  atten 
tion  to  what  he  had  there  ready  for  me."  Gray 
clearly  had  talked  himself  into  possession  of  his 

224 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

case.  "That's  the  sort  of  person  I  succeeded  in 
seeming  to  him — though  I  can  assure  you  without 
my  the  least  wanting  to." 

"What  you  feel  is  then  that  he  thought  he 
might  attack  with  some  sort  of  shock  for  you  the 
character  of  your  uncle?"  Vinty's  question  had 
a  special  straightness. 

"What  I  feel  is  that  he  has  so  attacked  it, 
shock  or  no  shock,  and  that  that  thing  in  my 
cabinet,  which  I  haven't  examined,  can  only  be 
the  proof." 

It  gave  Horton  much  to  turn  over.  "But  your 
conviction  has  an  extraordinary  bearing.  Do 
I  understand  that  the  thing  was  handed  you 
by  your  friend  with  a  knowledge  of  its  con 
tents?" 

"Don't,  please,"  Gray  said  at  once,  "under 
stand  anything  either  so  hideous  or  so  impossible. 
She  but  carried  out  a  wish  uttered  on  her  father's 
deathbed,  and  hasn't  so  much  as  suggested  that 
I  break  the  portentous  seal.  I  think  in  fact," 
he  assured  himself,  "that  she  greatly  prefers  I 
shouldn't." 

"Which  fact,"  Horton  observed,  "but  adds 
of  course  to  your  curiosity." 

Gray's  look  at  him  betrayed  on  this  a  still  finer 
interest  in  his  interest.  "You  see  the  limits  in 
me  of  that  passion." 

"Well,  my  dear  chap,  I've  seen  greater  limits 
to  many  things  than  your  having  your  little  secret 

225 


THE   IVORY  TOWER 

tucked  away  under  your  thumb.  Do  you  mind 
my  asking,"  Horton  risked,  "whether  what  deters 
you  from  action — and  by  action  I  mean  opening 
your  letter — is  just  a  real  apprehension  of  the 
effect  designed  by  the  good  gentleman  ?  Do  you 
feel  yourself  exposed,  by  the  nature  of  your  mind 
or  any  presumption  on  Gaw's  behalf,  to  give 
credit,  vulgarly  speaking,  to  whatever  charge  or 
charges  he  may  bring?" 

Gray  weighed  the  question,  his  wide  dark  eyes 
would  have  told  us,  in  his  choicest  silver  scales. 
"Neither  the  nature  of  my  mind,  bless  it,  nor  the 
utmost  force  of  any  presumption  to  the  contrary, 
prevents  my  having  found  my  uncle,  in  his  won 
derful  latest  development,  the  very  most  charm 
ing  person  that  I've  ever  seen  in  my  life.  Why 
he  impressed  me  as  a  model  of  every  virtue." 

"I  confess  I  don't  see,"  said  Horton,  "how  a 
relative  so  behaving  could  have  failed  to  endear 
himself.  With  such  convictions  why  don't  you 
risk  looking  ?" 

Gray  was  but  for  a  moment  at  a  loss — he  quite 
undertook  to  know.  "Because  the  whole  thing 
would  be  so  horrible.  I  mean  the  question  itself 
is — and  even  our  here  and  at  such  a  time  dis 
cussing  it." 

"Nothing  is  horrible — to  the  point  of  making 
one  quake,"  Horton  opined,  "that  falls  to  the 
ground  with  a  smash  from  the  moment  one  drops 
it.  The  sense  of  your  document  is  exactly  what's 

226 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

to  be  appreciated.  It  would  have  no  sense  at  all 
if  you  didn't  believe." 

Gray  considered,  but  still  differed.  "Yes,  to 
find  it  merely  vindictive  and  base,  and  thereby 
to  have  to  take  it  for  false,  that  would  still  be 
an  odious  experience." 

"Then  why  the  devil  don't  you  simply  destroy 
the  thing?"  Horton  at  last  quite  impatiently 
inquired. 

Gray  showed  perhaps  he  had  scarce  a  reason, 
but  had,  to  the  very  brightest  effect,  an  answer. 
"That's  just  what  I  want  you  to  help  me  to.  To 
help  me,  that  is,"  he  explained,  "after  a  little  to 
decide  for." 

"After  a  little?"  wondered  Horton.  "After 
how  long?" 

"Well,  after  long  enough  for  me  to  feel  sure 
I  don't  act  in  fear.  I  don't  want,"  he  went  on 
as  in  fresh  illustration  of  the  pleasure  taken  by 
him,  to  the  point,  as  it  were,  of  luxury,  in  feeling 
no  limit  to  his  companion's  comprehension,  or 
to  the  patience  involved  in  it  either,  amusedly 
as  Horton  might  at  moments  attempt  to  belie 
that,  adding  thereby  to  the  whole  service  some 
thing  still  more  spacious — "I  don't  want  to  act 
in  fear  of  anything  or  of  anyone  whatever;  I 
said  to  myself  at  home  three  weeks  ago,  or  when 
ever,  that  it  wasn't  for  that  I  was  going  to  come 
over;  and  I  propose  therefore,  you  see,  to  know 
so  far  as  possible  where  I  am  and  what  I'm 

227 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

about:    morally  speaking  at  least,  if  not  finan 
cially." 

His  friend  but  looked  at  him  again  on  this  in 
rather  desperate  diversion.  "I  don't  see  how 
you're  to  know  where  you  are,  I  confess,  if  you 
take  no  means  to  find  out." 

"Well,  my  acquisition  of  property  seems  by 
itself  to  promise  me  information,  and  for  the 
understanding  of  the  lesson  I  shall  have  to  take 
a  certain  time.  What  I  want,"  Gray  finely  ar 
gued,  "is  to  act  but  in  the  light  of  that." 

"In  the  light  of  time  ?  Then  why  do  you  begin 
by  so  oddly  wasting  it  ?" 

"Because  I  think  it  may  be  the  only  way  for 
me  not  to  waste  understanding.  Don't  be  afraid," 
he  went  on,  moving  as  by  the  effect  of  Horton's 
motion,  which  had  brought  that  subject  of  appeal 
a  few  steps  nearer  the  rare  repository,  "that  I 
shall  commit  the  extravagance  of  at  all  wasting 
you." 

Horton,  from  where  he  had  paused,  looked  up 
at  the  ivory  tower;  though  as  Gray  was  placed 
in  the  straight  course  of  approach  to  it  he  had 
after  a  fashion  to  catch  and  meet  his  eyes  by  the 
way.  "What  you  really  want  of  me,  it's  clear, 
is  to  help  you  to  fidget  and  fumble — or  in  other 
words  to  prolong  the  most  absurd  situation;  and 
what  I  ought  to  do,  if  you'd  believe  it  of  me,  is 
to  take  that  stuff  out  of  your  hands  and  just 
deal  with  it  myself." 

228 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

"And  what  do  you  mean  by  dealing  with  it 
yourself?" 

"Why  destroying  it  unread  by  either  of  us — 
which,"  said  Horton,  looking  about,  "I'd  do  in 
a  jiffy,  on  the  spot,  if  there  were  only  a  fire  in 
that  grate.  The  place  is  clear,  however,  and 
we've  matches;  let  me  chuck  your  letter  in  and 
enjoy  the  blaze  with  you." 

"Ah,  my  dear  man,  don't!  Don't!"  Gray 
repeated,  putting  it  rather  as  a  plea  for  indul 
gence  than  as  any  ghost  of  a  defiance,  but  in 
stinctively  stepping  backward  in  defence  of  his 
treasure. 

His  companion,  for  a  little,  gazed  at  the  cabi 
net,  in  speculation,  it  might  really  have  seemed, 
as  to  an  extraordinary  reach  of  arm.  "You  posi 
tively  prefer  to  hug  the  beastly  thing?" 

"Let  me  alone,"  Gray  presently  returned,  "and 
you'll  probably  find  I've  hugged  it  to  death." 

Horton  took,  however,  on  his  side,  a  moment 
for  further  reflection.  "I  thought  what  you 
wanted  of  me  to  be  exactly  not  that  I  should  let 
you  alone,  but  that  I  should  give  you  on  the  con 
trary  my  very  best  attention!" 

"Well,"  Gray  found  felicity  to  answer,  "I  feel 
that  you'll  see  how  your  very  best  attention  will 
sometimes  consist  in  your  not  at  all  minding  me." 

So  then  for  the  minute  Horton  looked  as  if  he 
took  it.  The  great  clock  on  the  mantel  appeared 
to  have  stopped  with  the  stop  of  its  late  owner's 

229 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

life;  so  that  he  eyed  his  watch  and  startled  at 
the  hour  to  which  they  had  talked.  He  put  out 
his  hand  for  good-night,  and  this  returned  grasp 
held  them  together  in  silence  a  minute.  Some 
thing  then  in  his  sense  of  the  situation  determined 
his  breaking  out  with  an  intensity  not  yet  pro 
duced  in  him.  "Yes — you're  really  prodigious. 
I  mean  for  trust  in  a  fellow.  For  upon  my  hon 
our  you  know  nothing  whatever  about  me." 

"That's  quite  what  I  mean,"  said  Gray — "that 
I  suffer  from  my  ignorance  of  so  much  that's  im 
portant,  and  want  naturally  to  correct  it.'* 
"Naturally'  ?"  his  visitor  gloomed. 

"Why,  I  do  know  this  about  you,  that  when 
we  were  together  with  old  Roulet  at  Neuchatel 
and,  off  on  our  cours  that  summer,  had  strayed 
into  a  high  place,  in  the  Oberland,  where  I  was 
ass  enough  to  have  slid  down  to  a  scrap  of  a  dizzy 
ledge,  and  so  hung  helpless  over  the  void,  unable 
to  get  back,  in  horror  of  staying  and  in  greater 
horror  of  not,  you  got  near  enough  to  me,  at  the 
risk  of  your  life,  to  lower  to  me  the  rope  we  so 
luckily  had  with  us  and  that  made  an  effort  of 
my  own  possible  by  my  managing  to  pass  it  under 
my  arms.  You  helped  that  effort  from  a  place 
of  vantage  above  that  nobody  but  you,  in  your 
capacity  for  playing  up,  would  for  a  moment  have 
taken  for  one,  and  you  so  hauled  and  steadied 
and  supported  me,  in  spite  of  your  almost  equal 
exposure,  that  little  by  little  I  climbed,  I  scram- 

230 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

bled,  my  absolute  confidence  in  you  helping,  for 
it  amounted  to  inspiration,  and  got  near  to  where 
you  were." 

"From  which  point/'  said  Horton,  whom  this 
reminiscence  had  kept  gravely  attentive,  "you 
in  your  turn  rendered  me  such  assistance,  I  re 
member,  though  I  can't  for  the  life  of  me  imagine 
how  you  contrived,  that  the  tables  were  quite 
turned  and  I  shouldn't  in  the  least  have  got  out 
of  my  fix  without  you."  He  now  pulled  up  short 
however;  he  stood  a  moment  looking  down.  "It 
isn't  pleasant  to  remember." 

"It  wouldn't,"  Gray  judged,  "be  pleasant  to 
forget.  You  gave  proof  of  extraordinary  cool 
ness." 

Horton  still  had  his  eyes  on  the  ground.  "We 
both  kept  our  heads.  I  grant  it's  a  decent  note 
for  us." 

"If  you  mean  we  were  associated  in  keeping 
our  heads,  you  kept  mine,"  Gray  remarked, 
"much  more  than  I  kept  yours.  I  should  be 
without  a  head  to-day  if  you  hadn't  seen  so  to 
my  future,  just  as  I  should  be  without  a  heart, 
you  must  really  let  me  remark,  if  I  didn't  look 
now  to  your  past.  I  consider  that  to  know  that 
fact  in  it  takes  me  of  itself  well-nigh  far  enough 
in  appreciation  of  you  for  my  curiosity,  even  at 
its  most  exasperated,  to  rest  on  a  bed  of  roses. 
However,  my  imagination  itself,"  Gray  still  more 
beautifully  went  on,  "insists  on  making  additions 

231 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

— since  how  can't  it,  for  that  matter,  picture  again 
the  rate  at  which  it  made  them  then  ?  I  hadn't 
even  at  the  time  waited  for  you  to  save  my  life 
in  order  to  think  you  a  swell.  If  I  thought  you 
the  biggest  kind  of  one,  and  if  in  your  presence 
now  I  see  just  as  much  as  ever  why  I  did,  what 
does  that  amount  to  but  that  my  mind  isn't  a 
blank  about  you  ?" 

"Well,  if  mine  had  ever  been  one  about  you," 
said  Horton,  once  more  facing  it,  "our  so  inter 
esting  conversation  here  would  have  sufficed  to 
cram  it  full.  The  least  I  can  make  of  you, 
whether  for  your  protection  or  my  profit,  is  just 
that  you're  insanely  romahtic." 

"Romantic — yes,"  Gray  smiled;  "but  oh,  but 
oh,  so  systematically!" 

"It's  your  system  that's  exactly  your  madness. 
How  can  you  take  me,  without  a  stroke  of  suc 
cess,  without  a  single  fact  of  performance,  to  my 
credit,  for  anything  but  an  abject  failure  ?  You're 
in  possession  of  no  faintest  sign,  kindly  note,  that 
I'm  not  a  mere  impudent  ass." 

Gray  accepted  this  reminder,  for  all  he  showed 
to  the  contrary,  in  the  admiring  spirit  in  which 
he  might  have  regarded  a  splendid  somersault  or 
an  elegant  trick  with  cards;  indulging,  that  is, 
by  his  appearance,  in  the  forward  bend  of  atten 
tion  to  it,  but  then  falling  back  to  more  serious 
ground.  "It's  my  romance  that's  itself  my  rea 
son;  by  which  I  mean  that  I'm  never  so  reason- 

232 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

able,  so  deliberate,  so  lucid  and  so  capable — to 
call  myself  capable  at  any  hour! — as  when  I'm 
most  romantic.  I'm  methodically  and  consist 
ently  so,  and  nothing  could  make  and  keep  me, 
for  any  dealings  with  me,  I  hold,  more  conve 
niently  safe  and  quiet.  You  see  that  you  can 
lead  me  about  by  a  string  if  you'll  only  tie  it  to 
my  appropriate  finger — which  you'll  find  out,  if 
you  don't  mind  the  trouble,  by  experience  of  the 
wrong  ones,  those  where  the  attachment  won't 
'act."  He  drew  breath  to  give  his  friend  the 
benefit  of  this  illustration,  but  another  connection 
quickly  caught  him  up.  "How  can  you  pretend 
to  suggest  that  you're  in  these  parts  the  faintest 
approach  to  an  insignificant  person  ?  How  can 
you  pretend  that  you're  not  as  clever  as  you  can 
stick  together,  and  with  the  cleverness  of  the 
right  kind  ?  For  there  are  odious  kinds,  I  know 
—the  kind  that  redresses  other  people's  stupidity 
instead  of  sitting  upon  it." 

"I'll  answer  you  those  questions,"  Horton 
goodhumouredly  said,  "as  soon  as  you  tell  me 
how  you've  come  by  your  wonderful  ground  for 
them.  Till  you're  able  to  do  that  I  shall  resent 
your  torrent  of  abuse.  The  appalling  creature 
you  appear  to  wish  to  depict !" 

"Well,  you're  simply  a  figure — what  I  call- 
in  all  the  force  of  the  term;  one  has  only  to  look 
at  you  to  see  it,  and  I  shall  give  up  drawing  con 
clusions  from  it  only  when  I  give  up  looking. 

233 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

You  can  make  out  that  there's  nothing  in  a  preju 
dice/'  Gray  developed,  "for  a  prejudice  may  be, 
or  must  be,  so  to  speak,  single-handed;  but  you 
can't  not  count  with  a  relation — I  mean  one 
you're  a  party  to,  because  a  relation  is  exactly 
a  fact  of  reciprocity.  Our  reciprocity,  which 
exists  and  which  makes  me  a  party  to  it  by 
existing  for  my  benefit,  just  as  it  makes  you 
one  by  existing  for  yours,  can't  possibly  result 
in  your  not  'figuring'  to  me,  don't  you  see  ?  with 
the  most  admirable  intensity.  And  I  simply  de 
cline,"  our  young  man  wound  up,  "not  to  believe 
tremendous  things  of  any  subject  of  a  relation  of 


mine." 


' 'Any'  subject?"  Vinty  echoed  in  a  tone  that 
showed  how  intelligently  he  had  followed.  "That 
condition,  I'm  afraid,"  he  smiled,  "will  cut  down 
not  a  little  your  general  possibilities  of  relation." 
And  then  as  if  this  were  cheap  talk,  but  a  point 
none  the  less  remained:  "In  this  country  one's  a 
figure  (whatever  you  may  mean  by  that !)  on  easy 
terms;  and  if  I  correspond  to  your  idea  of  the 
phenomenon  you'll  have  much  to  do — I  won't 
say  for  my  simple  self,  but  for  the  comfort  of  your 
mind — to  make  your  fond  imagination  fit  the 
funny  facts.  You  pronounce  me  an  awful  swell 
— which,  like  everything  else  over  here,  has  less 
weight  of  sense  in  it  for  the  saying  than  it  could 
have  anywhere  else;  but  what  barest  evidence 
have  you  of  any  positive  trust  in  me  shown  on 

234 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

any  occasion  or  in  any  connection  by  one  creature 
you  can  name  ?" 

"Trust?" — Gray  looked  at  the  red  tip  of  the 
cigarette  between  his  fingers. 

"Trust,  trust,  trust!" 

Well,  it  didn't  take  long  to  say.  "What  do 
you  call  it  but  trust  that  such  people  as  the  Brad- 
hams,  and  all  the  people  here,  as  he  tells  me, 
receive  you  with  open  arms  ?" 

"Such  people  as  the  Bradhams  and  as  'all  the 
people  here'!" — Horton  beamed  on  him  for  the 
beauty  of  that.  "Such  authorities  and  such 
'figures/  such  allegations,  such  perfections  and 
such  proofs!  Oh,"  he  said,  "I'm  going  to  have 
great  larks  with  you !" 

"You  give  me  then  the  evidence  I  want  in 
the  very  act  of  challenging  me  for  it.  What  bet 
ter  proof  of  your  situation  and  your  character 
than  your  possession  exactly  of  such  a  field  for 
whatever  you  like,  of  such  a  dish  for  serving  me 
up  ?  Mr.  Bradham,  as  you  know,"  Gray  con 
tinued,  "was  this  morning  so  good  as  to  pay  me 
a  visit,  and  the  form  in  which  he  put  your  glory 
to  me — because  we  talked  of  you  ever  so  pleas 
antly — was  that,  by  his  appreciation,  you  know 
your  way  about  the  place  better  than  all  the  rest 
of  the  knowing  put  together." 

Horton  smiled,  smoked,  kept  his  hands  in  his 
pockets.  "Dear  deep  old  Davey!" 

"Yes,"  said  Gray  consistently,  "isn't  he  a 
235 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

wise  old  specimen  ?  It's  rather  horrid  for  me 
having  thus  to  mention,  as  if  you  had  applied 
to  me  for  a  place,  that  I've  picked  up  a  good 
'character'  of  you,  but  since  you  insist  on  it  he 
assured  me  that  I  couldn't  possibly  have  a  better 
friend." 

"Well,  he's  a  most  unscrupulous  old  person 
and  ought  really  to  be  ashamed.  What  it  comes 
to,"  Haughty  added,  "is  that  though  I've  re 
peatedly  stayed  with  them  they've  to  the  best 
of  his  belief  never  missed  one  of  the  spoons.  The 
fact  is  that  even  if  they  had  poor  Davey  wouldn't 
know  it." 

"He  doesn't  take  care  of  the  spoons?"  Gray 
asked  in  a  tone  that  made  his  friend  at  once  swing 
round  and  away.  He  appeared  to  note  an  un 
expectedness  in  this,  yet,  "out"  as  he  was  for 
unexpectedness,  it  could  grow,  on  the  whole, 
clearly,  but  to  the  raising  of  his  spirits.  "Well, 
I  shall  take  care  of  my  loose  valuables  and,  un 
warned  by  the  Bradhams  and  likely  to  have  such 
things  to  all  appearance  in  greater  number  than 
ever  before,  what  can  I  do  but  persist  in  my 
notion  of  asking  you  to  keep  with  me,  at  your 
convenience,  some  proper  count  of  them  ?"  After 
which  as  Horton's  movement  had  carried  him 
quite  to  the  far  end  of  the  room,  where  the  force 
of  it  even  detained  him  a  little,  Gray  had  him 
again  well  in  view  for  his  return,  and  was  prompted 
thereby  to  a  larger  form  of  pressure.  "How  can 

236 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

you  pretend  to  palm  off  on  me  that  women  mustn't 
in  prodigious  numbers  'trust'  you?" 

Haughty  made  of  his  shoulders  the  most  pro 
digious  hunch.  "What  importance,  under  the 
sun,  has  the  trust  of  women — in  numbers  how 
ever  prodigious  ?  It's  never  what's  best  in  a  man 
they  trust — it's  exactly  what's  worst,  what's  most 
irrelevant  to  anything  or  to  any  class  but  them 
selves.  Their  kind  of  confidence,"  he  further 
elucidated,  "is  concerned  only  with  the  effect  of 
their  own  operations  or  with  those  to  which  they 
are  subject;  it  has  no  light  either  for  a  man's 
other  friends  or  for  his  enemies:  it  proves  nothing 
about  him  but  in  that  particular  and  wholly  de 
tached  relation.  So  neither  hate  me  nor  like  me, 
please,  for  anything  any  woman  may  tell  you." 

Horton's  hand  had  on  this  renewed  and  em 
phasised  its  proposal  of  good-night;  to  which  his 
host  acceded  with  the  remark:  "What  superfluous 
precautions  you  take!" 

"How  can  you  call  them  superfluous,"  he  asked 
in  answer  to  this,  "when  you've  been  taking  them 
at  such  a  rate  yourself? — in  the  interest,  I  mean, 
of  trying  to  persuade  me  that  you  can't  stand  on 
your  feet  ?" 

"It  hasn't  been  to  show  you  that  I'm  silly  about 
life — which  is  what  you've  just  been  talking  of. 
It  has  only  been  to  show  you  that  I'm  silly  about 
affairs,"  Gray  said  as  they  went  at  last  through 
the  big  bedimmed  hall  to  the  house  doors,  which 

237 


THE   IVORY  TOWER 

stood  open  to  the  warm  summer  night  under  the 
protection  of  the  sufficient  outward  reaches. 

"Well,  what  are  affairs  but  life?"  Vinty,  at 
the  top  of  the  steps,  sought  to  know. 

"You'll  make  me  feel,  no  doubt,  how  much 
they  are — which  would  be  very  good  for  me. 
Only  life  isn't  affairs — that's  my  subtle  distinc 
tion,"  Gray  went  on. 

"I'm  not  sure,  I'm  not  sure!"  said  Horton 
while  he  looked  at  the  stars. 

"Oh  rot — /  am!"  Gray  happily  declared;  to 
which  he  the  next  moment  added:  "What  it 
makes  you  contend  for,  you  see,  is  the  fact  of  my 
silliness." 

"Well,  what  is  that  but  the  most  splendid  fact 
about  you,  you  jolly  old  sage?"— and  his  visitor, 
getting  off,  fairly  sprang  into  the  shade  of  the 
shrubberies. 


238 


BOOK  FOURTH 
I 

AGAIN  and  again,  during  the  fortnight  that  fol 
lowed  his  uncle's  death,  were  his  present  and  his 
future  to  strike  our  young  man  as  an  extraordi 
nary  blank  cheque  signed  by  Mr.  Betterman  and 
which,  from  the  moment  he  accepted  it  at  all,  he 
must  fill  out,  according  to  his  judgment,  his  cour 
age  and  his  faith,  with  figures,  monstrous,  fan 
tastic,  almost  cabalistic,  that  it  seemed  to  him 
he  should  never  learn  to  believe  in.  It  was  not 
so  much  the  wonder  of  there  being  in  various  New 
York  institutions  strange  deposits  of  money,  to 
amounts  that,  like  familiar  mountain  masses,  ap 
peared  to  begin  at  the  blue  horizon  and,  sloping 
up  and  up  toward  him,  grew  bigger  and  bigger 
the  nearer  he  or  they  got,  till  they  fairly  overhung 
him  with  their  purple  power  to  meet  whatever 
drafts  upon  them  he  should  make;  it  was  not  the 
tone,  the  climax  of  dryness,  of  that  dryest  of  men 
Mr.  Crick,  whose  answering  remark  as  to  any 
and  every  particular  presumption  of  credit  was 
"Well,  I  guess  Pve  fixed  it  so  as  you'll  find  some 
thing  there";  that  sort  of  thing  was  of  course 
fairy-tale  enough  in  itself,  was  all  the  while  and  in 

239 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

a  hundred  connections  a  sweet  assault  on  his 
credulity,  but  was  at  the  same  time  a  phase  of 
experience  comparatively  vulgar  and  that  tended 
to  lose  its  edge  with  repetition.  The  real,  the 
overwhelming  sense  of  his  adventure  was  much 
less  in  the  fact  that  he  could  lisp  in  dollars,  as  it 
were,  and  see  the  dollars  come,  than  in  those  vast 
vague  quantities,  those  spreading  tracts,  of  his 
own  consciousness  itself  on  which  his  kinsman's 
prodigious  perversity  had  imposed,  as  for  his  ex 
ploration,  the  aspect  of  a  boundless  capital.  This 
trust  of  the  dead  man  in  his  having  a  nature  that 
would  show  to  advantage  under  a  bigger  strain 
than  it  had  ever  dreamed  of  meeting,  and  the 
corresponding  desolate  freedom  on  his  own  part 
to  read  back  into  the  mystery  such  refinements 
either,  or  such  crude  candours,  of  meaning  and 
motive  as  might  seem  best  to  fit  it,  that  was  the 
huge  vague  inscribable  sum  which  ran  up  into 
the  millions  and  for  which  the  signature  that  let 
tered  itself  to  the  last  neatness  wherever  his  mind's 
eye  rested  was  "good"  enough  to  reduce  any 
more  casual  sign  in  the  scheme  of  nature  or  of 
art  to  the  state  of  a  negligible  blur.  Mr.  Crick's 
want  of  colour,  as  Gray  qualified  this  gentleman's 
idiosyncrasy  from  the  moment  he  saw  how  it 
would  be  their  one  point  of  contact,  became,  by 
the  extreme  rarity  and  clarity  with  which  it 
couldn't  but  affect  him,  the  very  most  gorgeous 
gem,  of  the  ruby  or  topaz  order,  that  the  smooth 

240 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

forehead   of  the   actual  was   for  the  present   to 
flash  upon  him. 

For  dry  did  it  appear  inevitable  to  take  the  fact 
of  a  person's  turning  up,  from  New  York,  with  no 
other  retinue  than  an  attendant  scribe  in  a  straw 
hat,  a  few  hours  before  his  uncle's  last  one,  and 
being  beholden  to  mere  Miss  Mumby  for  simple 
introduction  to  Gray  as  Mr.  Betterman's  lawyer. 
So  had  such  sparenesses  and  barenesses  of  form  to 
register  themselves  for  a  mind  beset  with  the 
tradition  that  consequences  were  always  somehow 
voluminous  things;  and  yet  the  dryness  was  of  a 
sort,  Gray  soon  apprehended,  that  he  might  take 
up  in  handfuls,  as  if  it  had  been  the  very  sand  of 
the  Sahara,  and  thereby  find  in  it,  at  the  least 
exposure  to  light,  the  collective  shimmer  of 
myriads  of  fine  particles.  It  was  with  the  sub 
stance  of  the  desert  taken  as  monotonously  spar 
kling  under  any  motion  to  dig  in  it  that  the  abyss 
of  Mr.  Crick's  functional  efficiency  was  filled. 
That  efficiency,  in  respect  to  the  things  to  be  done, 
would  clearly  so  answer  to  any  demand  upon  it 
within  the  compass  of  our  young  man's  subtlety, 
that  the  result  for  him  could  only  be  a  couple  of 
days  of  inexpressible  hesitation  as  to  the  outward 
air  he  himself  should  be  best  advised  to  aim  at 
wearing.  He  reminded  himself  at  this  crisis  of 
the  proprietor  of  a  garden,  newly  acquired,  who 
might  walk  about  with  his  gardener  and  try  to 
combine,  in  presence  of  abounding  plants  and  the 

241 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

vast  range  of  luxuriant  nature,  an  ascertainment 
of  names  and  properties  and  processes  with  a  dis 
simulation,  for  decent  appearance,  of  the  positive 
side  of  his  cockneyism.  By  no  imagination  of  a 
state  of  mind  so  unfurnished  would  the  gardener 
ever  have  been  visited;  such  gaping  seams  in  the 
garment  of  knowledge  must  affect  him  at  the 
worst  as  mere  proprietary  languor,  the  offhand- 
ness  of  repletion;  and  no  effective  circumvention 
of  traditional  takings  for  granted  could  late-born 
curiosity  therefore  achieve.  Gray's  hesitation 
ceased  only  when  he  had  decided  that  he  needn't 
care,  comparatively  speaking,  for  what  Mr.  Crick 
might  think  of  him.  He  was  going  to  care  for 
what  others  might — this  at  least  he  seemed  rest 
lessly  to  apprehend;  he  was  going  to  care  tremen 
dously,  he  felt  himself  make  out,  for  what  Ro- 
sanna  Gaw  might,  for  what  Horton  Vint  might — 
even,  it  struck  him,  for  what  Davey  Bradham 
might.  But  in  presence  of  Mr.  Crick,  who  in 
sisted  on  having  no  more  personal  identity  than 
the  omnibus  conductor  stopping  before  you  but 
just  long  enough  to  bite  into  a  piece  of  paste 
board  with  a  pair  of  small  steel  jaws,  the  ques 
tion  of  his  having  a  character  either  to  keep  or 
to  lose  declined  all  relevance — and  for  the  reason 
in  especial  that  whichever  way  it  might  turn  for 
him  would  remain  perhaps,  so  to  speak,  the  most 
unexpressed  thing  that  should  ever  have  happened 
in  the  world. 

242 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

The  effect  producible  by  him  on  the  persons 
just  named,  and  extending  possibly  to  whole 
groups  of  which  these  were  members,  would  be 
an  effect  because  somehow  expressed  and  en 
countered  as  expression:  when  had  he  in  all  his 
life,  for  example,  so  lived  in  the  air  of  expression 
and  so  depended  on  the  help  of  it,  as  in  that  so 
thrilling  night-hour  just  spent  with  the  mystify 
ing  and  apparently  mystified,  yet  also  apparently 
attached  and,  with  whatever  else,  attaching, 
Vinty  ?  It  wasn't  that  Mr.  Crick,  whose  analogue 
he  had  met  on  every  occasion  of  his  paying  his 
fare  in  the  public  conveyances — where  the  per 
sons  to  whom  he  paid  it,  without  perhaps  in  their 
particulars  resembling  each  other,  all  managed 
nevertheless  to  be  felt  as  gathered  into  this  ref 
erence — wasn't  in  a  high  degree  conversible;  it 
was  that  the  more  he  conversed  the  less  Gray 
found  out  what  he  thought  not  only  of  Mr.  Bet- 
terman's  heir  but  of  any  other  subject  on  which 
they  touched.  The  gentleman  who  would,  by 
Gray's  imagination,  have  been  acting  for  the 
executors  of  his  uncle's  will  had  not  that  precious 
document  appeared  to  dispense  with  every  super 
fluity,  could  state  a  fact,  under  any  rash  invita 
tion,  and  endow  it,  as  a  fact,  with  the  greatest 
conceivable  amplitude — this  too  moreover  not 
because  he  was  garrulous  or  gossiping,  but  be 
cause  those  facts  with  which  he  was  acquainted, 
the  only  ones  on  which  you  would  have  dreamed 


THE   IVORY  TOWER 

of  appealing  to  him,  seemed  all  perfect  nests  or 
bags  of  other  facts,  bristling  or  bulging  thus  with 
every  intensity  of  the  positive  and  leaving  no 
room  in  their  interstices  for  mere  appreciation  to 
so  much  as  turn  round.  They  were  themselves 
appreciation — they  became  so  by  the  simple 
force  of  their  existing  for  Mr.  Crick's  arid  men 
tion,  and  they  so  covered  the  ground  of  his  con 
sciousness  to  the  remotest  edge  that  no  breath 
of  the  air  either  of  his  own  mind  or  of  anyone's 
else  could  have  pretended  to  circulate  about  them. 
Gray  made  the  reflection — tending  as  he  now  felt 
himself  to  waste  rather  more  than  less  time  in 
this  idle  trick — that  the  different  matters  of  con 
tent  in  some  misunderstandings  have  so  glued 
themselves  together  that  separation  has  quite 
broken  down  and  one  continuous  block,  sugges 
tive  of  dimensional  squareness,  with  mechanical 
perforations  and  other  aids  to  use  subsequently 
introduced,  comes  to  represent  the  whole  life  of 
the  subject.  What  it  amounted  to,  he  might 
have  gathered,  was  that  Mr.  Crick  was  of  such  a 
common  commonness  as  he  had  never  up  to  now 
seen  so  efficiently  embodied,  so  completely  or 
ganised,  so  securely  and  protectedly  active,  in 
a  word — not  to  say  so  garnished  and  adorned 
with  strange  refinements  of  its  own:  he  had 
somehow  been  used  to  thinking  of  the  extreme 
of  that  quality  as  a  note  of  defeated  application, 
just  as  the  extreme  of  rarity  would  have  to  be. 

244 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

His  domestic  companion  of  these  days  again  and 
again  struck  him  as  most  touching  the  point  at 
issue,  and  that  point  alone,  when  most  proclaim 
ing  at  every  pore  that  there  wasn't  a  difference, 
in  all  the  world,  between  one  thing  and  another. 
The  refusal  of  his  whole  person  to  figure  as  a 
fact  invidiously  distinguishable,  that  of  his  aspect 
to  have  an  identity,  of  his  eyes  to  have  a  con 
sciousness,  of  his  hair  to  have  a  colour,  of  his 
nose  to  have  a  form,  of  his  mouth  to  have  a  mo 
tion,  of  his  voice  to  consent  to  any  separation  of 
sounds,  made  intercourse  with  him  at  once  ex 
tremely  easy  and  extraordinarily  empty;  it  was 
deprived  of  the  flicker  of  anything  by  the  way 
and  resembled  the  act  of  moving  forward  in  a 
perfectly-rolling  carriage  with  the  blind  of  each 
window  neatly  drawn  down. 

Gray  sometimes  advanced  to  the  edge  of  trying 
him,  so  to  call  it,  as  to  the  impression  made  on 
him  by  lack  of  recognitions  assuredly  without 
precedent  in  any  experience,  any,  least  of  all,  of 
the  ways  of  beneficiaries;  but  under  the  necessity 
on  each  occasion  of  our  young  man's  falling  back 
from  the  vanity  of  supposing  himself  really  pre 
sentable  or  apprehensible.  For  a  grasp  of  him 
on  such  ground  to  take  place  he  should  have  had 
first  to  show  himself  and  to  catch  his  image  some 
how  reflected;  simply  walking  up  and  down  and 
shedding  bland  gratitude  didn't  convey  or  ex 
hibit  or  express  him  in  this  case,  as  he  was  sure 

245 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

these  things  had  on  the  other  hand  truly  done 
where  everyone  else,  where  his  uncle  and  Ro- 
sanna,  where  Mr.  Gaw  and  even  Miss  Mumby, 
where  splendid  Vinty,  whom  he  so  looked  to, 
and  awfully  nice  Davey  Bradham,  whom  he  so 
took  to,  were  concerned.  It  all  came  back  to 
the  question  of  terms  and  to  the  perception,  in 
varying  degrees,  on  the  part  of  these  persons,  of 
his  own;  for  there  were  somehow  none  by  which 
Mr.  Crick  was  penetrable  that  would  really  tell 
anything  about  him,  and  he  could  wonder  in  free 
dom  if  he  wasn't  then  to  know  too  that  last  im 
munity  from  any  tax  on  his  fortune  which  would 
consist  in  his  having  never  to  wince.  Against 
wincing  in  other  relations  than  this  one  he  was 
prepared,  he  only  desired,  to  take  his  precautions 
—visionary  precautions  in  those  connections  truly 
swarming  upon  him;  but  apparently  he  was 
during  these  first  days  of  the  mere  grossness  of 
his  reality  to  learn  something  of  the  clear  state 
of  seeing  every  fond  sacrifice  to  superstition  that 
he  could  think  of  thrust  back  at  him.  If  he  could 
but  have  brought  his  visitor  to  say  after  twenty- 
four  hours  of  him  "Well,  you're  the  damnedest 
little  idiot  I've  ever  had  to  pretend  to  hold  com 
merce  with !"  that  would  on  the  spot  have  pressed 
the  spring  of  his  rich  sacrificial  "Oh  I  must  be, 
I  must  be ! — how  can  I  not  abjectly  and  grate 
fully  be  ? "  Something  at  least  would  so  have 
been  done  to  placate  the  jealous  gods.  But  in- 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

stead  of  that  the  grossness  of  his  reality  just 
flatly  included  this  supremely  useful  friend's  per 
haps  supposing  him  a  vulgar  voluptuary,  or  at 
least  a  mere  gaping  maw,  cynically,  which 
amounted  to  say  frivolously,  indifferent  to  every 
thing  but  the  general  fact  of  his  windfall.  Strange 
that  it  should  be  impossible  in  any  particular 
whatever  to  inform  or  to  correct  Mr.  Crick,  who 
sat  unapproachable  in  the  midst  of  the  only 
knowledge  that  concerned  him. 

He  couldn't  help  feeling  it  conveyed  in  the 
very  breath  of  the  summer  airs  that  played  about 
him,  to  his  fancy,  in  a  spirit  of  frolic  still  lighter 
and  quicker  than  they  had  breathed  in  other 
climes,  he  couldn't  help  almost  seeing  it  as  the 
spray  of  sea-nymphs,  or  hearing  it  as  the  sounded 
horn  of  tritons,  emerging,  to  cast  their  spell, 
from  the  foam-flecked  tides  around,  that  he  was 
regarded  as  a  creature  rather  unnaturally  "quiet" 
there  on  his  averted  verandahs  and  in  his  darkened 
halls,  even  at  moments  when  quite  immense 
things,  by  his  own  measure,  were  happening  to 
him.  Everything,  simply,  seemed  to  be  happen 
ing,  and  happening  all  at  once — as  he  could  say 
to  himself,  for  instance,  by  the  fact  of  such  a 
mere  matter  as  his  pulling  up  at  some  turn  of  his 
now  renewedly  ceaseless  pacing  to  take  in  he 
could  scarce  have  said  what  huge  though  soft 
collective  rumble,  what  thick  though  dispersed 
exhalation,  of  the  equipped  and  appointed  life, 

247 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

the  life  that  phrased  itself  with  sufficient  as 
surance  as  the  multitudinous  throb  of  Newport, 
borne  toward  him  from  vague  regions,  from  be 
hind  and  beyond  his  temporary  blest  barriers, 
and  representing  for  the  first  time  in  his  experience 
an  appeal  directed  at  him  from  a  source  not  some 
what  shabbily  single.  An  impression  like  that 
was  in  itself  an  event — so  repeatedly  in  his  other 
existence  (it  was  already  his  quite  unconnectedly 
other)  had  the  rumour  of  the  world,  the  voice  of 
society,  the  harmonies  of  possession,  been  charged, 
for  his  sensibility,  with  reminders  which,  so  far 
from  suggesting  association,  positively  waved 
him  off  from  it.  Mr.  Betterman's  funeral,  for 
all  the  rigour  of  simplicity  imposed  on  it  by  his 
preliminary  care,  had  enacted  itself  in  a  pon 
derous,  numerous,  in  fact  altogether  swarming 
and  resounding  way;  the  old  local  cemetery  on 
the  seaward-looking  hillside,  as  Gray  seemed  to 
identify  it,  had  served  for  the  final  scene,  and 
our  young  man's  sense  of  the  whole  thing  reached 
its  finest  point  in  an  unanswered  question  as  to 
whether  the  New  York  business  world  or  the  New 
York  newspaper  interest  were  the  more  copiously 
present.  The  business  world  broke  upon  him 
during  the  recent  rites  in  large  smooth  tepid 
waves — he  was  conscious  of  a  kind  of  generalised 
or,  as  they  seemed  to  be  calling  it,  standardised 
face,  as  of  sharpness  without  edge,  save  when 
edge  was  unexpectedly  improvised,  bent  upon 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

him  for  a  hint  of  what  might  have  been  better 
expressed  could  it  but  have  been  expressed  hu 
morously;  while  the  newspaper  interest  only  fed 
the  more  full,  he  felt  even  at  the  time,  from  the 
perfectly  bare  plate  offered  its  flocking  young 
emissaries  by  the  most  recognising  eye  at  once 
and  the  most  deprecating  dumbness  that  he 
could  command. 

He  had  asked  Vinty,  on  the  morrow  of  Vinty's 
evening  visit,  to  "act"  for  him  in  so  far  as  this 
might  be;  upon  which  Vinty  had  said  gaily — he 
was  unexceptionally  gay  now — "Do  you  mean 
as  your  best  man  at  your  marriage  to  the  bride 
who  is  so  little  like  St.  Francis's  ?  much  as  you 
yourself  strike  me,  you  know,  as  resembling  the 
man  of  Assisi."  Vinty,  at  his  great  present  ease, 
constantly  put  things  in  such  wonderful  ways; 
which  were  nothing,  however,  to  the  way  he 
mostly  did  them  during  the  days  he  was  able 
to  spare  before  going  off  again  to  other  calls, 
other  performances  in  other  places,  braver  and 
breezier  places  on  the  bolder  northern  coast,  it 
mostly  seemed:  his  allusions  to  which  excited 
absolutely  the  more  curious  interest  in  his  friend, 
by  an  odd  law,  in  proportion  as  he  sketched  them, 
under  pressure,  as  probably  altogether  alien  to 
the  friend's  sympathies.  That  was  to  be  for  the 
time,  by  every  indication,  his  amusing  "line"- 
his  taking  so  confident  and  insistent  a  view  of 
what  it  must  be  in  Gray's  nature  and  tradition 

249 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

to  like  or  not  to  like  that,  as  our  young  man  for 
that  matter  himself  assured  him,  he  couldn't 
have  invented  a  more  successfully  insidious  way 
of  creating  an  appetite  than  by  passing  under  a 
fellow's  nose  every  sort  of  whiff  of  the  indigestible. 
One  thing  at  least  was  clear,  namely:  that,  let 
his  presumption  of  a  comrade's  susceptibilities, 
his  possible  reactions,  under  general  or  particular 
exposure,  approve  itself  or  not,  the  extent  to 
which  this  free  interpreter  was  going  personally 
to  signify  for  the  savour  of  the  whole  stretched 
there  as  a  bright  assurance.  Thus  he  was  all  the 
while  acting  indeed — acting  so  that  fond  formula 
tions  of  it  could  only  become  in  the  promptest 
way  mere  redundancies  of  reference;  he  acted 
because  his  approach,  his  look,  his  touch  made 
somehow,  by  their  simply  projecting  themselves, 
a  definite  difference  for  any  question,  great  or 
small,  in  the  least  subject  to  them;  and  this, 
after  the  most  extraordinary  fashion,  not  in  the 
least  through  his  pressing  or  interfering  or  even 
so  much  as  intending,  but  just  as  a  consequence 
of  his  having  a  sense  and  an  intelligence  of  the 
given  affair,  such  as  it  might  be,  to  which,  once 
he  was  present  at  it,  he  was  truly  ashamed  not 
to  conform.  That  concentrated  passage  between 
the  two  men  while  the  author  of  their  situation 
was  still  unburied  would  of  course  always  hover 
to  memory's  eye  like  a  votive  object  in  the  rich 
gloom  of  a  chapel;  but  it  was  now  disconnected, 

250 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

attached  to  its  hook  once  for  all,  its  whole  mean 
ing  converted  with  such  small  delay  into  work 
ing,  playing  force  and  multiplied  tasteable  fruit. 
Quiet  as  he  passed  for  keeping  himself,  by  the 
impression  I  have  noted,  how  could  Gray  have 
felt  more  plunged  in  history,  how  could  he  by  his 
own  sense  more  have  waked  up  to  it  each  morn 
ing  and  gone  to  bed  with  it  each  night,  sat  down 
to  it  whenever  he  did  sit  down,  which  was  never 
for  long,  whether  at  a  meal,  at  a  book,  at  a  letter, 
or  at  the  wasted  endeavour  to  become,  by  way  of 
a  change,  really  aware  of  his  consciousness,  than 
through  positively  missing  as  he  did  the  hint  of 
anything  in  particular  to  do  ? — missing  and  miss 
ing  it  all  the  while  and  yet  at  no  hour  paying  the 
least  of  the  penalties  that  are  supposed  to  attend 
the  drop  of  responsibility  and  the  substituted 
rule  of  fatuity.  How  couldn't  it  be  agitation  of 
a  really  sublime  order  to  have  it  come  over  one 
that  the  personage  in  the  world  one  must  most 
resemble  at  such  a  pitch  would  be  simply,  at 
one's  choice,  the  Kaiser  or  the  Czar,  potentates 
who  only  know  their  situation  is  carried  on  by 
attestation  of  the  fact  that  push  it  wherever  they 
will  they  never  find  it  isn't  ?  Thus  they  are  re 
ferred  to  the  existence  of  machinery,  the  working 
of  which  machinery  is  answered  for,  they  may 
feel,  whenever  their  eyes  rest  on  one  of  those 
figures,  ministerial  or  ceremonial,  who  may  be, 
as  it  is  called,  in  waiting.  Mr.  Crick  was  in  wait- 

251 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

ing,  Horton  Vint  was  in  waiting,  Rosanna  Gaw 
even,  at  this  moment  a  hundred  miles  away,  was 
in  waiting,  and  so  was  Davey  Bradham,  though 
with  but  a  single  appearance  at  the  palace  as  yet 
to  his  credit.  Neither  Horton  nor  Mr.  Crick,  it 
was  true,  were  more  materially,  more  recurrently 
present  than  a  fellow's  nerves,  for  the  wonder  of 
it  all,  could  bear;  but  what  was  it  but  just  being 
Czar  or  Kaiser  to  keep  thrilling  on  one's  own 
side  before  the  fact  that  this  made  no  difference  ? 
Vulgar  reassurance  was  the  greatest  of  vulgari 
ties;  monarchs  could  still  be  irresponsible,  thanks 
to  their  ministers'  not  being,  and  Gray  repeatedly 
asked  himself  how  he  should  ever  have  felt  as 
he  generally  did  if  it  hadn't  been  so  absolutely 
exciting  that  while  the  scattered  moments  of 
Horton's  presence  and  the  fitful  snatches  of  tele 
phonic  talk  with  him  lasted  the  gage  of  protec 
tion,  perfectly  certain  patronising  protection, 
added  a  still  pleasanter  light  to  his  eye  and  ring 
to  his  voice,  casual  and  trivial  as  he  clearly  might 
have  liked  to  keep  these  things.  Great  mon 
archies  might  be  "run,"  but  great  monarchs 
weren't — unless  of  course  often  by  the  favourite 
or  the  mistress;  and  one  hadn't  a  mistress  yet, 
goodness  knew,  and  if  one  was  threatened  with  a 
favourite  it  would  be  but  with  a  favourite  of  the 
people  too. 

History  and  the  great  life  surged  in  upon  our 
hero  through  such  images  as  these  at  their  fullest 

252 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

tide,  finding  him  out  however  he  might  have 
tried  to  hide  from  them,  and  shaking  him  perhaps 
even  with  no  livelier  question  than  when  it  oc 
curred  to  him  for  the  first  time  within  the  week, 
oddly  enough,  that  the  guest  of  the  Bradhams 
never  happened,  while  his  own  momentary  guest, 
to  meet  Mr.  Crick,  in  his  counsels,  by  so  much 
as  an  instant's  overlapping,  any  more  than  it 
would  chance  on  a  single  occasion  that  he  should 
name  his  friend  to  that  gentleman  or  otherwise 
hint  at  his  existence,  still  less  his  importance. 
Was  it  just  that  the  king  was  usually  shy  of  men 
tioning  the  favourite  to  the  head  of  the  treasury 
and  that  various  decencies  attached,  by  tradi 
tion,  to  keeping  public  and  private  advisers 
separate?  "Oh  I  absolutely  decline  to  come  in, 
at  any  point  whatever,  between  you  and  him\ 
as  if  there  were  any  sort  of  help  I  can  give  you 
that  he  won't  ever  so  much  better!" — those 
words  had  embodied,  on  the  morrow,  Vinty's 
sole  allusion  to  the  main  sense  of  their  first  talk, 
which  he  had  gone  on  with  in  no  direct  fashion. 
He  had  thrown  a  ludicrous  light  on  his  committing 
himself  to  any  such  atrocity  of  taste  while  the 
empowered  person  and  quite  ideally  right  man 
was  about;  but  points  would  come  up  more  and 
more,  did  come  up,  in  fact  already  had,  that  they 
doubtless  might  work  out  together  happily  enough; 
and  it  took  Horton  in  fine  the  very  fewest  hours 
to  give  example  after  example  of  his  familiar  and 

253 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

immediate  wit.  Nothing  could  have  better  il 
lustrated  this  than  the  interest  thrown  by  him 
for  Gray  over  a  couple  of  subjects  that,  with 
many  others  indeed,  beguiled  three  or  four  rides 
taken  by  the  friends  along  the  indented  shores 
and  other  seaside  stretches  and  reaches  of  their 
low-lying  promontory  in  the  freshness  of  the 
early  morning  and  when  the  scene  might  figure 
for  themselves  alone.  Gray,  clinging  as  yet  to 
his  own  premises  very  much  even  as  a  stripped 
swimmer  might  loiter  to  enjoy  an  air-bath  be 
fore  his  dive,  had  yet  mentioned  that  he  missed 
exercise  and  had  at  once  found  Vinty  full  of  re 
source  for  his  taking  it  in  that  pleasantest  way. 
Everything,  by  his  assurance,  was  going  to  be 
delightful  but  the  generality  of  the  people;  thus, 
accordingly,  was  the  generality  of  the  people  not 
yet  in  evidence,  thus  at  the  sweet  hour  following 
the  cool  dawn  could  the  world  he  had  become 
possessed  of  spread  about  him  unspoiled. 

It  was  perhaps  in  Gray  to  wonder  a  little  in 
these  conditions  what  was  then  in  evidence,  with 
decks  so  invidiously  cleared;  this  being,  however, 
a  remark  he  forbore  to  make,  mystified  as  he 
had  several  times  been,  and  somehow  didn't  like 
too  much  being,  by  having  had  to  note  that  to 
differ  at  all  from  Vinty  on  occasions  apparently 
offered  was  to  provoke  in  him  at  once  a  positive 
excess  of  agreement.  He  always  went  further, 
as  it  were,  and  Gray  himself,  as  he  might  say, 

254 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

didn't  want  to  go  those  lengths,  which  were  out 
of  the  range  of  practical  politics  altogether.  Hor- 
ton's  habit,  as  it  seemed  to  show  itself,  was  to 
make  out  of  saving  sociability  or  wanton  in 
genuity  or  whatever,  a  distinction  for  which  a 
companion  might  care,  but  for  which  he  himself 
didn't  with  any  sincerity,  and  then  to  give  his 
own  side  of  it  away,  from  the  moment  doubt 
had  been  determined,  with  an  almost  desolating 
sweep  of  surrender.  His  own  side  of  it  was  by 
that  logic  no  better  a  side,  in  a  beastly  vulgar 
world,  than  any  other,  and  if  anj^one  wanted  to 
mean  that  such  a  mundane  basis  was  deficient 
why  he  himself  had  but  meant  it  from  the  first 
and  pretended  something  else  only  not  to  be  too 
shocking.  He  was  ready  to  mean  the  worst- 
was  ready  for  anything,  that  is,  in  the  interest 
of  ceasing  from  humbug.  And  if  Gray  was  pre 
pared  for  that  then  il  ne  s'agissait  que  de  s'enten- 
dre.  What  Gray  was  prepared  for  would  really 
take,  this  young  man  frankly  opined,  some  thresh 
ing  out;  but  it  wasn't  at  all  in  readiness  for  the 
worst  that  he  had  come  to  America — he  had 
come  on  the  contrary  to  indulge,  by  God's  help, 
in  appreciations,  comparisons,  observations,  re 
flections  and  other  luxuries,  that  were  to  minister, 
fond  old  prejudice  aiding,  to  life  at  the  high  pitch, 
the  pitch,  as  who  should  say,  of  immortality. 
If  on  occasion,  under  the  dazzle  of  Horton's 
facility,  he  might  ask  himself  how  he  tracked 

255 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

through  it  the  silver  thread  of  sincerity — con 
sistency  wasn't  pretended  to — something  at  once 
supervened  that  was  better  than  any  answer, 
some  benefit  of  information  that  the  circumstance 
required,  of  judgment  that  assisted  or  supported 
or  even  amused,  by  felicity  of  contradiction,  and 
that  above  all  pushed  the  question  so  much  further, 
multiplying  its  relations  and  so  giving  it  air  and 
colour  and  the  slap  of  the  brush,  that  it  straight 
way  became  a  picture  and,  for  the  kind  of  atten 
tion  Gray  could  best  render,  a  conclusive  settled 
matter.  He  hated  somehow  to  detract  from  his 
friend,  wanting  so  much  more  to  keep  adding  to 
him;  but  it  was  after  a  little  as  if  he  had  felt 
that  his  loyalty,  or  whatever  he  might  call  it, 
could  yet  not  be  mean  in  deciding  that  Horton's 
generalisations,  his  opinions  as  distinguished  from 
his  perceptions  and  direct  energies  and  images, 
signified  little  enough:  if  he  would  only  go  on 
bristling  as  he  promised  with  instances  and  items, 
would  only  consent  to  consist  at  the  same  rate 
and  in  his  very  self  of  material  for  history,  one 
might  propose  to  gather  from  it  all  at  one's  own 
hours  and  without  troubling  him  the  occasional 
big  inference. 

How  good  he  could  be  on  the  particular  case 
appeared  for  example  after  Gray  had  expressed 
to  him,  just  subsequently  to  their  first  encounter, 
a  certain  light  and  measured  wonderment  at 
Rosanna  Gaw's  appearing  not  to  intend  to  ab- 

256 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

sent  herself  long  enough  from  her  cares  in  the 
other  State,  immense  though  these  conceivably 
were,  to  do  what  the  rest  of  them  were  doing 
roundabout  Mr.  Betterman's  grave.  Our  young 
man  had  half  taken  for  granted  that  she  would 
have  liked,  expressing  it  simply,  to  assist  with 
him  at  the  last  attentions  to  a  memory  that  had 
meant,  in  the  current  phrase,  so  much  for  them 
both — though  of  course  he  withal  quite  remem 
bered  that  her  interest  in  it  had  but  rested  on 
his  own  and  that  since  his  own,  as  promoted  by 
her,  had  now  taken  such  effect  there  was  gross- 
ness  perhaps  in  looking  to  her  for  further  demon 
strations:  this  at  least  in  view  of  her  being  un 
der  her  filial  stress  not  unimaginably  sated  with 
ritual.  He  had  caught  himself  at  any  rate  in 
the  act  of  dreaming  that  Rosanna's  return  for 
the  funeral  would  be  one  of  the  inevitabilities  of 
her  sympathy  with  his  fortune — every  element 
of  which  (that  was  overwhelmingly  certain)  he 
owed  to  her;  and  even  the  due  sense  that,  put 
her  jubilation  or  whatever  at  its  highest,  it  could 
scarce  be  expected  to  dance  the  same  jig  as  his, 
didn't  prevent  his  remarking  to  his  friend  that 
clearly  Miss  Gaw  would  come,  since  he  himself 
was  still  in  the  stage  of  supposing  that  when  you 
had  the  consciousness  of  a  lot  of  money  you  sort 
of  did  violent  things.  He  played  with  the  idea 
that  her  arrival  for  the  interment  would  partake 
of  this  element,  proceeding  as  it  might  from  the 

257 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

exhilaration  of  her  monstrous  advantages,  her 
now  assured  state.  "Look  at  the  violent  things 
Pm  doing,"  he  seemed  to  observe  with  this,  "and 
see  how  natural  I  must  feel  it  that  any  violence 
should  meet  me.  Yours,  for  example" — Gray 
really  went  so  far — "recognises  how  I  want,  or 
at  least  how  I  enjoy,  a  harmony;  though  at  the 
same  time,  I  assure  you,  I'm  already  prepared 
for  any  disgusted  snub  to  the  attitude  of  unlimited 
concern  about  me,  gracious  goodness,  that  I  may 
seem  to  go  about  taking  for  granted."  Unlimited 
concern  about  him  on  the  part  of  the  people  who 
weren't  up  at  the  cool  of  dawn  save  in  so  far  as 
they  here  and  there  hadn't  yet  gone  to  bed— 
this,  in  combination  with  something  like  it  on 
the  part  of  numberless  others  too,  had  indeed 
to  be  faced  as  the  inveterate  essence  of  Vinty's 
forecast,  and  formed  perhaps  the  hardest  nut 
handed  to  Gray's  vice  of  cogitation  to  crack;  it 
was  the  thing  that  he  just  now  most  found  him 
self,  as  they  said,  up  against — involving  as  it 
did  some  conception  of  reasons  other  than  ugly 
for  so  much  patience  with  the  boring  side  of  him. 
An  interest  founded  on  the  mere  beastly  fact 
of  his  pecuniary  luck,  what  was  that  but  an  ugly 
thing  to  see,  from  the  moment  his  circle,  since  a 
circle  he  was  apparently  to  have,  shouldn't  soon 
be  moved  to  some  decent  reaction  from  it  ?  How 
was  he  going  himself  to  like  breathing  an  air  in 
which  the  reaction  didn't  break  out,  how  was  he 

258 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

going  not  to  get  sick  of  finding  so  large  a  part 
played,  over  the  place,  by  the  mere  constatation, 
in  a  single  voice,  a  huge  monotone  restlessly  and 
untiringly  directed,  but  otherwise  without  appli 
cation,  of  the  state  of  being  worth  dollars  to  in 
ordinate  amounts  ?  Was  he  really  going  to  want 
to  live  with  many  specimens  of  the  sort  of  person 
who  wouldn't  presently  rather  loathe  him  than 
know  him  blindedly  on  such  terms  ?  would  it 
be  possible,  for  that  matter,  that  he  should  feel 
people  unashamed  of  not  providing  for  their  at 
tention  to  him  any  better  account  of  it  than  his 
uncle's  form  of  it  had  happened  to  supply,  with 
out  his  by  that  token  coming  to  regard  them  either 
as  very  "interested,"  according  to  the  good  old 
word,  or  as  themselves  much  too  foredoomed 
bores  to  merit  tolerance  ?  When  it  reached  the 
pitch  of  his  asking  himself  whether  it  could  be 
possible  Vinty  wouldn't  at  once  see  what  he 
meant  by  that  reservation,  he  patched  the  ques 
tion  up  but  a  bit  provisionally  perhaps  by  falling 
back  on  a  remark  about  this  confidant  that  was 
almost  always  equally  in  order.  They  weren't 
on  the  basis  yet  of  any  treatable  reality,  any  that 
could  be  directly  handled  and  measured,  other 
than  such  as  were,  so  to  speak,  the  very  children 
of  accident,  those  the  old  man's  still  unexplained 
whim  had  with  its  own  special  shade  of  grimness 
let  him  in  for.  Naturally  must  it  come  to  pass 
with  time  that  the  better  of  the  set  among  whom 

259 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

this  easy  genius  was  the  best  would  stop  thinking 
money  about  him  to  the  point  that  prevented 
their  thinking  anything  else — so  that  he  should 
only  break  off  and  not  go  in  further  after  giving 
them  a  chance  to  show  in  a  less  flurried  way  to 
what  their  range  of  imagination  might  reach  in 
vited  and  encouraged.  Should  they  markedly 
fail  to  take  that  chance  it  would  be  all  up  with 
them  so  far  as  any  entertainment  that  he  should 
care  to  offer  them  was  concerned.  How  could 
it  stick  out  more  disconcertingly — so  his  appeal 
might  have  run — that  a  fuss  about  him  was  as 
yet  absolutely  a  fuss  on  a  vulgar  basis  ?  having 
begun,  by  what  he  gathered,  quite  before  the 
growth  even  of  such  independent  rumours  as 
Horton's  testimony,  once  he  was  on  the  spot, 
or  as  Mr.  Bradham's  range  of  anecdote,  conse 
quent  on  Mr.  Bradham's  call,  might  give  warrant 
for:  it  couldn't  have  behind  it,  he  felt  sure,  so 
much  as  a  word  of  Rosanna's,  of  the  heralding 
or  promising  sort — he  would  so  have  staked  his 
right  hand  on  the  last  impossibility  of  the  least 
rash  overflow  on  that  young  woman's  part. 

There  was  this  other  young  woman,  of  course, 
whom  he  heard  of  at  these  hours  for  the  first  time 
from  Haughty  and  whom  he  remembered  well 
enough  to  have  heard  praise  of  from  his  adopted 
father,  three  or  four  years  previous,  on  his  re 
joining  the  dear  man  after  a  summer's  separa 
tion.  She  would  be,  "Gussy's"  charming  friend, 

260 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

Haughty's  charming  friend,  no  end  of  other 
people's  charming  friend,  as  appeared,  the  hero 
ine  of  the  charming  friendship  his  own  admirable 
friend  had  formed,  in  a  characteristically  head 
long  manner  (some  exceptional  cluster  of  graces, 
in  her  case,  clearly  much  aiding)  with  a  young 
American  girl,  the  very  nicest  anyone  had  ever 
seen,  met  at  the  waters  of  Ragatz  during  one  of 
several  seasons  there  and  afterwards  described 
in  such  extravagant  terms  as  were  to  make  her 
remain,  between  himself  and  his  elder,  a  subject 
of  humorous  reference  and  retort.  It  had  had  to 
do  with  Gray's  liking  his  companion  of  those 
years  always  better  and  better  that  persons  in 
trinsically  distinguished  inveterately  took  to  him 
so  naturally — even  if  the  number  of  the  admirers 
rallying  was  kept  down  a  little  by  the  rarity,  of 
course,  of  intrinsic  distinction.  It  wasn't,  either, 
as  if  this  blest  associate  had  been  by  constitution 
an  elderly  flirt,  or  some  such  sorry  type,  addicted 
to  vain  philanderings  with  young  persons  he 
might  have  fathered:  he  liked  young  persons, 
small  blame  to  him,  but  they  had  never,  under 
Gray's  observation,  made  a  fool  of  him,  and  he 
was  only  as  much  of  one  about  the  young  lady 
in  question,  Cecilia  Foy,  yes,  of  New  York,  as 
served  to  keep  all  later  inquiry  and  pleasantry 
at  the  proper  satiric  pitch.  She  would  have  been 
a  fine  little  creature,  by  our  friend's  beguiled 
conclusion,  to  have  at  once  so  quickened  and 

261 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

so  appreciated  the  accidental  relation;  for  was 
anything  truly  quite  so  charming  in  a  clever  girl 
as  the  capacity  for  admiring  disinterestedly  a 
brave  gentleman  even  to  the  point  of  willingness 
to  take  every  trouble  about  him  ? — when  the  dis 
interestedness  dwelt,  that  is,  in  the  very  pleasure 
she  could  seek  and  find,  so  much  more  creditable 
a  matter  to  her  than  any  she  could  give  and  be 
complimented  for  giving,  involved  as  this  could 
be  with  whatever  vanity,  vulgarity  or  other  per 
sonal  pretence. 

Gray  remembered  even  his  not  having  missed 
by  any  measure  of  his  own  need  or  play  of  his 
own  curiosity  the  gain  of  Miss  Foy's  acquaintance 
— so  might  the  felicity  of  the  quaint  affair,  given 
the  actual  parties,  have  been  too  sacred  to  be 
breathed  on;  he  in  fact  recalled,  and  could  still 
recall,  every  aspect  of  their  so  excellent  time 
together  reviving  now  in  a  thick  rich  light,  how 
he  had  inwardly  closed  down  the  cover  on  his 
stepfather's  accession  of  fortune — which  the  pretty 
episode  really  seemed  to  amount  to;  extracting 
from  it  himself  a  particular  relief  of  conscience. 
He  could  let  him  alone,  by  this  showing,  without 
black  cruelty — so  little  had  the  day  come  for  his 
ceasing  to  attract  admirers,  as  they  said,  at  pub 
lic  places  or  being  handed  over  to  the  sense  of 
desertion.  That  left  Gray  as  little  as  possible 
haunted  with  the  young  Cecilia's  image,  so  com 
pletely  was  his  interest  in  her,  in  her  photograph 

262 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

and  in  her  letters,  one  of  the  incidents  of  his  vir 
tually  filial  solicitude;  all  the  less  in  fact  no 
doubt  that  she  had  written  during  the  aftermonths 
frequently  and  very  advertisedly,  though  perhaps, 
in  spite  of  Mr.  Northover's  gay  exhibition  of  it, 
not  so  very  remarkably.  She  was  apparently  one 
of  the  bright  persons  who  are  not  at  their  bright 
est  with  the  pen — which  question  indeed  would 
perhaps  come  to  the  proof  for  him,  thanks  to  his 
having  it  ever  so  vividly,  not  to  say  derisively, 
from  Horton  that  this  observer  didn't  really  know 
what  had  stayed  her  hand,  for  the  past  week, 
from  an  outpouring  to  the  one  person  within  her 
reach  who  would  constitute  a  link  with  the  de 
lightful  old  hero  of  her  European  adventure.  That 
so  close  a  representative  of  the  party  to  her  ro 
mance  was  there  in  the  flesh  and  but  a  mile  or 
two  off,  was  a  fact  so  extraordinary  as  to  have 
waked  up  the  romance  again  in  her  and  produced 
a  state  of  fancy  from  which  she  couldn't  rest— 
for  some  shred  of  the  story  that  might  be  still 
afloat.  Gray  therefore  needn't  be  surprised  to 
receive  some  sign  of  this  commotion,  and  that 
he  hadn't  yet  done  so  was  to  be  explained,  Haughty 
guessed,  by  the  very  intensity  of  the  passions 
involved. 

One  of  them,  it  thus  appeared,  burnt  also  in 
Gussy's  breast;  devoted  as  she  was  to  Cissy,  she 
had  taken  the  fond  anecdote  that  so  occupied 
them  as  much  under  her  protection  as  she  had 

263 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

from  far  back  taken  the  girl's  every  other  in 
terest,  and  what  for  the  hour  paralysed  their 
action,  that  of  the  excited  pair,  must  simply 
have  been  that  Mrs.  Bradham  couldn't  on  the 
one  hand  listen  to  anything  so  horrid  as  that 
her  young  friend  should  make  an  advance  un 
prepared  and  unaccompanied,  and  that  the  ar 
dent  girl,  on  the  other,  had  for  the  occasion,  as 
for  all  occasions,  her  ideal  of  independence.  Gray 
was  not  himself  impatient — he  felt  no  jump  in 
him  at  the  chance  to  discuss  so  dear  a  memory 
in  an  air  still  incongruous;  it  depended  on  who 
might  propose  to  him  the  delicate  business,  let 
alone  its  not  making  for  a  view  of  the  great  Gussy's 
fine  tact  that  she  should  even  possibly  put  herself 
forward  as  a  proposer.  However,  he  didn't  mind 
thinking  that  if  Cissy  should  prove  all  that  was 
likely  enough  their  having  a  subject  in  common 
couldn't  but  practically  conduce;  though  the 
moral  of  it  all  amounted  rather  to  a  portent,  the 
one  that  Haughty,  by  the  same  token,  had  done 
least  to  reassure  him  against,  of  the  extent  to 
which  the  native  jungle  harboured  the  female 
specimen  and  to  which  its  ostensible  cover,  the 
vast  level  of  mixed  growths  stirred  wavingly  in 
whatever  breeze,  was  apt  to  be  identifiable  but 
as  an  agitation  of  the  latest  redundant  thing  in 
ladies'  hats.  It  was  true  that  when  Rosanna  had 
perfectly  failed  to  rally,  merely  writing  a  kind 
short  note  to  the  effect  that  she  should  have  to 

264 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

give  herself  wholly,  for  she  didn't  know  how 
long,  to  the  huge  assault  of  her  own  questions, 
that  might  have  seemed  to  him  to  make  such  a 
clearance  as  would  count  against  any  number 
of  positively  hovering  shades.  Horton  had  an 
swered  for  her  not  turning  up,  and  nothing  per 
haps  had  made  him  feel  so  right  as  this  did  for 
a  faith  in  those  general  undertakings  of  assurance; 
only,  when  at  the  end  of  some  days  he  saw  that 
vessel  of  light  obscured  by  its  swing  back  to  New 
York  and  other  ranges  of  action,  the  sense  of  ex 
posure — even  as  exposure  to  nothing  worse  than 
the  lurking  or  pouncing  ladies — became  sharper 
through  contrast  with  the  late  guarded  interval; 
this  to  the  extent  positively  of  a  particular  hour 
at  which  it  seemed  to  him  he  had  better  turn 
tail  and  simply  flee,  stepping  from  under  the  too 
vast  orb  of  his  fate. 

He  was  alone  with  that  quantity  on  the  Sep 
tember  morning  after  breakfast  as  he  had  not 
felt  himself  up  to  now;  he  had  taken  to  pacing 
the  great  verandah  that  had  become  his  own  as 
he  had  paced  it  when  it  was  still  his  uncle's,  and 
it  might  truly  have  been  a  rush  of  nervous  appre 
hension,  a  sudden  determination  of  terror,  that 
quickened  and  yet  somehow  refused  to  direct  his 
steps.  He  had  turned  out  there  for  the  company 
of  sea  and  sky  and  garden,  less  conscious  than 
within  doors,  for  some  reason,  that  Horton  was 
a  lost  luxury;  but  that  impression  was  presently 

265 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

to  pass  with  a  return  of  a  queer  force  in  his  view 
of  Rosanna  as  above  all  somehow  wanting,  off 
and  withdrawn  verily  to  the  pitch  of  her  having 
played  him  some  trick,  merely  let  him  in  where 
she  was  to  have  seen  him  through,  failed  in  fine 
of  a  sociability  implied  in  all  her  preliminaries. 
He  found  his  attention  caught,  in  one  of  his  revo 
lutions,  by  the  chair  in  which  Abel  Gaw  had  sat 
that  first  afternoon,  pulling  him  up  for  their  so 
unexpectedly  intense  mutual  scrutiny,  and  when 
he  turned  away  a  moment  after,  quitting  the 
spot  almost  as  if  the  strange  little  man's  death 
that  very  night  had  already  made  him  appari- 
tional,  which  was  unpleasant,  it  was  to  drop  upon 
the  lawn  and  renew  his  motion  there.  He  circled 
round  the  house  altogether  at  last,  looking  at  it 
more  critically  than  had  hitherto  seemed  relevant, 
taking  the  measure,  disconcertedly,  of  its  un 
abashed  ugliness,  and  at  the  end  coming  to  regard 
it  very  much  as  he  might  have  eyed  some  mon 
strous  modern  machine,  one  of  those  his  generation 
was  going  to  be  expected  to  master,  to  fly  in,  to 
fight  in,  to  take  the  terrible  women  of  the  future 
out  for  airings  in,  and  that  mocked  at  his  incom 
petence  in  such  matters  while  he  walked  round 
and  round  it  and  gave  it,  as  for  dread  of  what  it 
might  do  to  him,  the  widest  berth  his  enclosure 
allowed.  In  the  midst  of  all  of  which,  quite  won 
derfully,  everything  changed;  he  wasn't  alone 
with  his  monster,  he  was  in,  by  this  reminder, 

266 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

for  connections,  nervous  ass  as  he  had  just  missed 
writing  himself,  and  connections  fairly  glittered, 
swarming  out  at  him,  in  the  person  of  Mr.  Brad- 
ham,  who  stood  at  the  top  of  a  flight  of  steps  from 
the  gallery,  which  he  had  been  ushered  through 
the  house  to  reach,  and  there  at  once,  by  some 
odd  felicity  of  friendliness,  some  pertinence  of 
presence,  of  promise,  appeared  to  make  up  for 
whatever  was  wrong  and  supply  whatever  was 
absent.  It  came  over  him  with  extraordinary 
quickness  that  the  way  not  to  fear  the  massed 
ambiguity  was  to  trust  it,  and  this  florid,  solid, 
smiling  person,  who  waved  a  prodigious  gold- 
coloured  straw  hat  as  if  in  sign  of  ancient  amity, 
had  come  exactly  at  that  moment  to  show  him 
how.1 

1  This  ends  the  first  chapter  of  Book  IV.  The  MS.  breaks  off  with 
an  unfinished  sentence  opening  the  next  chapter:  "Not  the  least 
pointed  of  the  reflections  Gray  was  to  indulge  in  a  fortnight  later 
and  as  by  a  result  of  Davey  Bradham's  intervention  in  the  very 
nick  was  that  if  he  had  turned  tail  that  afternoon,  at  the  very  oddest 
of  all  his  hours,  if  he  had  prematurely  taken  to  his  heels  and  missed 
the  emissary  from  the  wonderful  place  of  his  fresh  domestication, 
the  article  on  which  he  would  most  irretrievably  have  dished  him 
self  .  .  ." 


267 


NOTES  FOR 
THE  IVORY  TOWER 


NOTES  FOR  THE  IVORY  TOWER 

AUGUSTA  BRADHAM,  "Gussie"  Bradham,  for  the 
big  social  woman.  Basil  Hunn  I  think  on  the 
whole  for  Hero.  Graham  Rising,  which  becomes 
familiarly  Gray  Rising,  I  have  considered  but 
incline  to  keep  for  another  occasion. 

Horton  Crimper,  among  his  friends  Haughty 
Crimper,  seems  to  me  right  and  best,  on  the 
whole,  for  my  second  young  man.  I  don't  want 
for  him  a  surname  intrinsically  pleasing;  and 
this  seems  to  me  of  about  the  good  nuance.  My 
Third  Man  hereby  becomes,  I  seem  to  see,  Davey 
Bradham;  on  which,  I  think,  for  the  purpose  and 
association,  I  can't  improve. 

My  Girl,  in  the  relinquished  thing,  was  Cissy 
Foy;  and  this  was  all  right  for  the  figure  there 
intended,  but  the  girl  here  is  a  very  different 
one,  and  everything  is  altered.  I  want  her  name 
moreover,  her  Christian  one,  to  be  Moyra,  and 
must  have  some  bright  combination  with  that; 
the  essence  of  which  is  a  surname  of  two  syllables 
and  ending  in  a  consonant — also  beginning  with 
one.  I  am  thinking  of  Moyra  Grabham,  the 
latter  excellent  thing  was  in  the  Times  of  two  or 
three  days  ago;  its  only  fault  is  a  little  too  much 
meaning,  but  the  sense  here  wouldn't  be  thrown 

271 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

into  undue  relief,  and  I  don't  want  anything 
pretty  or  conventionally  "pleasing."  Everything 
of  the  shade  of  the  real.  Remain  thus  important 
the  big,  the  heavy  Daughter  of  the  billionaire, 
with  her  father;  in  connection  with  whom  I 
think  I  give  up  Betterman.  That  must  stand 
over,  and  I  want,  above  all,  a  single  syllable. 
All  the  other  names  have  two  or  three;  and  this 
makes  an  objection  to  the  Shimple,  which  I  orig 
inally  thought  of  as  about  odd  and  ugly  enough 
without  being  more  so  than  I  want  it.  But  that 
also  will  keep,  while  I  see  that  I  have  the  mono 
syllable  Hench  put  down;  only  put  down  for 
another  connection.  I  see  I  thought  of  "Wenty" 
Hench,  short  for  Wentworth,  as  originally  good 
for  Second  Young  Man.  If  I  balance  that  against 
Haughty  Crimper,  I  incline  still  to  the  latter, 
for  the  small  amusement  of  the  Haughty.  On 
the  other  hand  I  am  not  content  with  Hench, 
though  a  monosyllable,  for  the  dear  Billionaire 
girl,  in  the  light  of  whom  it  is  alone  important 
to  consider  the  question,  her  Father  so  little 
mattering  after  she  becomes  by  his  death  the 
great  Heiress  of  the  time.  And  I  kind  of  want 
to  make  her  Moyra;  with  which  I  just  spy  in 
the  Times  a  wonderful  and  admirable  "Chown"; 
which  makes  me  think  that  Moyra  Chown  may 
do.  Besides  which  if  I  keep  Grabham  for  my 
"heroine"  I  feel  the  Christian  name  should  there 
be  of  one  syllable.  All  my  others  are  of  two; 

272 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

and  I  shall  presently  make  the  case  right  for  this, 
finding  the  good  thing.  The  above  provides  for 
the  time  for  the  essential.  Yet  suddenly  I  am 
pulled  up — Grabham,  after  all,  won't  at  all  do 
if  I  keep  Bradham  for  the  other  connection; 
which  I  distinctly  prefer:  I  want  nothing  with 
any  shade  of  a  special  sense  there.  Accordingly, 
I  don't  know  but  what  I  may  go  in  for  a  different 
note  altogether  and  lavish  on  her  the  fine  Can- 
tupher;  which  I  don't  want  however  really  to 
waste.  When  Cantupher  is  used  there  ought  to 
be  several  of  it,  and  above  all  men:  no,  I  see  it 
won't  do,  and  besides  I  don't  want  anything 
positively  fine.  I  like  Wither,  and  I  like  Augurer, 
and  I  like,  in  another  note,  Damper,  and  I  even 
see  a  little  Bessie  as  a  combination  with  it,  though 
I  don't  on  the  whole  want  a  Bessie.  At  any  rate 
I  now  get  on. 

1  What  I  want  the  first  Book  to  do  is  to  present 
the  Gaws,  the  Bradhams  and  Cissy  Foy,  in  Three 
Chapters  or  Scenes,  call  them  Scenes  of  the  Acts, 
in  such  a  way  that  I  thus  present  with  them  the 
first  immediate  facts  involved;,  or  in  other  words 
present  the  first  essence  of  the  Situation.  What 
I  see  is,  as  I  further  reflect,  that  it  is  better  to 
get  Graham  Fielder  there  within  the  Act,  to  have 
him  on  the  premises  already,  and  learnt  so  to  be, 

1  From  this  point  the  names  of  the  characters,  most  of  which  were 
still  uncertain,  are  given  in  accordance  with  Henry  James'  final 
choice;  though  it  may  be  noted  that  he  was  to  the  end  dissatisfied 
with  the  name  of  Cissy  Foy  and  meant  to  choose  another. 

273 


THE   IVORY  TOWER 

before  it  has  progressed  beyond  the  first  Scene; 
though  he  be  not  seen  till  the  Second  Book. 
When  Rosanna  goes  over  to  her  Father  it  befals 
before  she  has  had  more  than  twenty  words  with 
him  that  one  of  the  Nurses  who  is  most  sympa 
thetic  to  her  appears  in  the  long  window  that 
opens  from  the  house  on  to  the  verandah,  and  it 
is  thus  at  once  disclosed  that  he  has  come.  Ro 
sanna  has  taken  for  granted  from  the  quiet  air 
of  the  place  that  this  event  hasn't  yet  occurred; 
but  Gray  has  in  fact  arrived  with  the  early  morn 
ing,  has  come  on  the  boat  from  New  York,  the 
night  one,  and  is  there  above  with,  or  ready  to 
be  with,  the  dying  man.  Perfectly  natural  and 
plausible  I  make  it  that  he  doesn't  begin  at  once 
to  pervade  the  place;  delicacy,  discretion,  anxiety 
naturally  operating  with  him;  so  that  we  know 
only  he  is  there,  and  that  matters  are  more  or  less 
taking  place  above,  during  the  rest  of  the  Book. 
But  the  fact  in  question  immediately  determines, 
for  proprieties'  and  discretions'  sake,  the  with 
drawal  of  Rosanna  and  her  Father;  they  return 
to  their  own  abode;  and  I  see  the  rest  of  the  busi 
ness  of  the  act  as  taking  place  partly  there  and 
partly,  by  what  I  make  out,  on  the  Bradhams' 
own  premises,  the  field  of  the  Third  Scene.  Here 
is  the  passage  between  the  two  young  women 
that  I  require,  and  my  Heroine,  I  think,  must  be 
on  a  visit  of  a  number  of  days  to  Gussie.  I  want 
Davey  first  with  Rosanna,  and  think  I  get  some- 

274 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

thing  like  his  having  walked  over,  along  the  cliff, 
to  their  house,  to  bring  her,  at  his  wife's  request, 
over  to  tea.  Yes,  I  have  Davey's  walk  back 
with  Rosanna,  and  her  Father's  declining  to  come, 
or  saying  that  he  will  follow  afterward;  his  real 
design  being  to  sneak  over  again,  as  I  may  call 
it,  to  the  other  house,  in  the  exercise  of  his  in 
tense  curiosity.  That  special  founded  and  mo 
tived  condition  is  what  we  sufficiently  know  him 
by  and  what  he  is  for  the  time  (which  is  all  the 
time  we  have  of  him)  identified  by.  I  get  thus 
for  Book  2  that  Gray,  latish  in  the  afternoon, 
coming  down  from  his  uncle's  quarter,  finds  him, 
has  a  passage  or  scene  with  him,  above  all  an  im 
pression  of  him;  and  this  before  he  has  had  any 
other:  we  learn  that  he  hasn't  seen  his  uncle  yet; 
the  judgment  of  the  doctors  about  this  being 
operative  and  they  wishing  a  further  wait.  I 
want  Rosanna's  Father  for  his  first  very  sharp 
impression;  this  really  making,  I  think,  Scene 
First  of  Book  2.  It  gives  me  Scene  2  for  what 
I  shall  then  want  without  further  delay  of  his 
first  introduction  to  his  Uncle's  room  and  his 
half  hour,  or  whatever,  there;  with  the  fact  de 
termined  of  the  non-collapse  of  the  latter,  his 
good  effect  from  the  meeting  quite  rather,  and 
the  duration  of  him  determined  to  end  of  Book  2. 
After  Book  2  he  is  no  more.  Scene  3  of  Book  2 
then  can  only  be,  for  Gray,  with  Rosanna;  that 
scene  having  functions  to  be  exercised  with  no 

275 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

more  delay  at  all,  by  what  I  make  out,  and  being 
put  in,  straight,  then  and  there,  that  we  may 
have  the  support  of  it.  I  by  the  same  token  see 
Book  3  now  as  functional  entirely  for  the  en 
counter  of  Gray  with  the  two  other  women  and, 
for  the  first  time,  with  Davey;  and  also  as  pre 
paring  the  appearance  of  Horton  Vint,  though  not 
producing  it.  I  see  him,  in  fact,  I  think,  as  intro 
duced  independently  of  his  first  appearance  to 
Gray,  see  it  as  a  matter  of  his  relation  with  Cissy, 
and  as  lighting  up  what  I  immediately  want  of 
their  situation.  In  fact  don't  I  see  this  as  Hor- 
ton's  "Act"  altogether,  as  I  shall  have  seen  and 
treated  Book  i  as  Rosanna's,  and  Book  2  as 
Gray's.  By  the  blest  operation  this  time  of  my 
Dramatic  principle,  my  law  of  successive  Aspects, 
each  treated  from  its  own  centre,  as,  though  with 
qualifications,  The  Awkward  Age,  I  have  the 
great  help  of  flexibility  and  variety;  my  persons 
in  turn,  or  at  least  the  three  or  four  foremost, 
having  control,  as  it  were,  of  the  Act  and  Aspect, 
and  so  making  it  his  or  making  it  hers.  This  of 
course  with  the  great  inevitable  and  desirable 
preponderance,  in  the  Series,  of  Gray's  particular 
weight.  But  I  seem  to  make  out,  to  a  certainty, 
at  least  another  "Act"  for  Rosanna  and  prob 
ably  another  for  Horton;  though  perhaps  not  more 
than  one,  all  to  herself,  for  Cissy.  I  say  at  least 
another  for  Horton  on  account  of  my  desire  to 
give  Gray  as  affecting  Horton,  only  less  than  I 

276 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

want  to  give  Horton  as  affecting  Gray.  It  is  true 
that  I  get  Gray  as  affecting  Horton  more  or  less 
in  Book  3,  but  as  the  situation  developes  it  will 
make  new  needs,  determinations  and  possibili 
ties.  All  this  for  feeling  my  way  and  making 
things  come,  more  and  more  come.  I  want  an 
Aspect  under  control  of  Davey,  at  all  events — 
this  I  seem  pretty  definitely  to  feel;  but  things 
will  only  come  too  much.  At  all  events,  to  re 
treat,  remount,  a  little  there  are  my  3  first  Books 
sufficiently  started  without  my  having  as  yet 
exactly  noted  the  absolutely  fundamental  ante 
cedents.  But  before  I  do  this,  even,  I  memorise 
that  Gray's  Scene  with  Rosanna  for  3  of  Book  2 
shall  be  by  her  coming  over  to  Mr.  Betterman's 
house  herself  that  evening,  all  frankly  and  di 
rectly,  to  see  him  there;  not  by  his  going  over  to 
her.  And  I  seem  to  want  it  evening;  the  sum 
mer  night  outside,  with  their  moving  about  on 
the  Terrace  and  above  the  sea  etc.  Withal,  by 
the  same  token,  I  want  such  interesting  things 
between  them  from  immediately  after  the  pro 
mulgation  of  Mr.  Betterman's  Will;  I  want  that, 
but  of  course  can  easily  get  it,  so  far  as  anything 
is  easy,  in  Book  4,  the  function  of  which  is  to 
present  Gray  as  face  to  face  with  the  situation 
so  created  for  him.  This  is  obviously,  of  course, 
one  of  Gray's  Aspects,  and  the  next  will  desirably 
be,  I  dare  say  too;  can  only  be,  so  far  as  I  can 
now  tell,  when  I  consider  that  the  Book  being  my 

277 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

Fourth,  only  Six  of  the  Ten  which  I  most  devoutly 
desire  to  limit  the  thing  to  then  remain  for  my 
full  evolution  on  the  momentum  by  that  time 
imparted.  Certainly,  at  all  events,  the  Situation 
leaves  Newport,  to  come  to  life,  its  full  life,  in 
New  York,  where  I  seem  to  see  it  as  going  on  to 
the  end,  unless  I  manage  to  treat  myself  to  some 
happy  and  helpful  mise-en-scene  or  exploitation 
of  my  memory  of  (say)  California.  The  action 
entirely  of  American  localisation,  as  goes  without 
saying,  yet  making  me  thus  kind  of  hanker,  for 
dear  "amusement's"  sake,  to  decorate  the  thing 
with  a  bit  of  a  picture  of  some  American  Some 
where  that  is  not  either  Newport  or  N.Y.  I  even 
ask  myself  whether  Boston  wouldn't  serve  for 
this  garniture,  serve  with  a  narrower  economy 
than  "dragging  in"  California.  I  kind  of  want 
to  drag  in  Boston  a  little,  feeling  it  as  naturally 
and  thriftily  workable.  But  these  are  details 
which  will  only  too  much  come;  and  I  seem  to 
see  already  how  my  action,  however  tightly 
packed  down,  will  strain  my  Ten  Books,  most 
blessedly,  to  cracking.  That  is  exactly  what  I 
want,  the  tight  packing  and  the  beautifully  audi 
ble  cracking;  the  most  magnificent  masterly  little 
vivid  economy,  with  a  beauty  of  its  own  equal 
to  the  beauty  of  the  donnee  itself,  that  ever  was. 
However,  what  the  devil  are,  exactly,  the  little 
fundamentals  in  the  past  ?  Fix  them,  focus  them 
hard;  they  need  only  be  perfectly  conceivable, 

278 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

but  they  must  be  of  the  most  lucid  sharpness.  I 
want  to  have  it  that  for  Gray,  and  essentially  for 
Rosanna,  it's  a  renewal  of  an  early,  almost,  or 
even  quite  positively,  childish  beginning;  and  for 
Gray  it's  the  same  with  Horton  Vint — the  im 
pression  of  Horton  already  existing  in  him,  a 
very  strong  and  "dazzled"  one,  made  in  the 
quite  young  time,  though  in  a  short  compass  of 
days,  weeks,  possibly  months,  or  whatever,  and 
having  lasted  on  (always  for  Gray)  after  a  fashion 
that  makes  virtually  a  sort  of  relation  already 
established,  small  as  it  ostensibly  is.  Such  his 
relation  with  Rosanna,  such  his  relation  with 
Horton — but  for  his  relation  with  Cissy—  -? 
Do  I  want  that  to  be  also  a  renewal,  the  residuum 
of  an  old  impression,  or  a  fresh  thing  altogether  ? 
What  strikes  me  prima  facie  is  that  it's  better  to 
have  two  such  pre-established  origins  for  the 
affair  than  three;  the  only  question  is  does  that 
sort  of  connection  more  complicate  or  more  sim 
plify  for  that  with  Cissy  ?  It  more  simplifies  if 
I  see  myself  wanting  to  give,  by  my  plan,  the  full 
effect  of  a  revolution  in  her,  a  revolution  marked 
the  more  by  the  germ  of  the  relation  being  thrown 
back,  marked  the  more,  that  is,  in  the  sense  of 
the  shade  of  perfidy,  treachery,  the  shade  of  the 
particular  element  and  image  that  is  of  the  es 
sence,  so  far  as  she  is  concerned,  of  my  action. 
How  this  exactly  works  I  must  in  a  moment  go 
into — hammer  it  out  clear;  but  meanwhile  there 

279 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

are  these  other  fundamentals.  Gray  then  is  the 
son  of  his  uncle's  half-sister,  not  sister  (on  the 
whole,  I  think);  whose  dissociation  from  her  rich 
brother,  before  he  was  anything  like  so  rich,  must 
have  followed  upon  her  marrying  a  man  with 
whom  he,  Mr.  Betterman,  was  on  some  peculiarly 
bad  terms  resulting  from  a  business  difference  or 
quarrel  of  one  of  those  rancorous  kinds  that  such 
lives  (as  Mr.  Betterman's)  are  plentifully  be- 
strown  with.  The  husband  has  been  his  victim, 
and  he  hasn't  hated  him,  or  objected  to  him  for 
a  brother-in-law,  any  the  less  for  that.  The 
objected-to  brother-in-law  has  at  all  events  died 
early,  and  the  young  wife,  with  her  boy,  her  scant 
means,  her  disconnection  from  any  advantage 
to  her  represented  by  her  half-brother,  has  be 
taken  herself  to  Europe;  where  the  rest  of  that 
history  has  been  enacted.  I  see  the  young  hus 
band,  Gray's  father,  himself  Graham  Fielder  the 
elder  or  whatever,  as  dying  early,  but  probably 
dying  in  Europe,  through  some  catastrophe  to  be 
determined,  two  or  three  years  after  their  going 
there.  This  is  better  than  his  dying  at  home, 
for  removal  of  everything  from  nearness  to  Mr. 
Betterman.  Betterman  has  been  married  and  has 
had  children,  a  son  and  a  daughter,  this  is  indis 
pensable,  for  diminution  of  the  fact  of  paucity  of 
children;  but  he  has  lost  successively  these  be 
longings — there  is  nothing  over  strange  in  it;  the 
death  of  his  son,  at  1 6  or  1 8  or  thereabouts,  hav- 

280 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

ing  occurred  a  few  years,  neither  too  few  nor  too 
many,  before  my  beginning,  and  having  been  the 
sorest  fact  of  his  life.  Well  then,  young  Mrs. 
Fielder  or  whoever,  becomes  thus  in  Europe  an 
early  widow,  with  her  little  boy,  and  there,  after 
no  long  time,  marries  again,  marries  an  alien,  a 
European  of  some  nationality  to  be  determined, 
but  probably  an  Englishman;  which  completes 
the  effect  of  alienation  from  her  brother — easily 
conceivable  and  representable  as  "in  his  way," 
disliking  this  union;  and  indeed  as  having  made 
known  to  her,  across  the  sea,  that  if  she  will  for 
bear  from  it  (this  when  he  first  hears  of  it  and 
before  it  has  taken  place)  and  will  come  back  to 
America  with  her  boy,  he  will  "forgive"  her  and 
do  for  her  over  there  what  he  can.  The  great  fact 
is  that  she  declines  this  condition,  the  giving  up 
of  her  new  fiance,  and  thereby  declines  an  advan 
tage  that  may,  or  might  have,  become  great  for 
her  boy.  Not  so  great  then — Betterman  not  then 
so  rich.  But  in  fine—  With  which  I  cry  Eureka, 
eureka;  I  have  found  what  I  want  for  Rosanna's 
connection,  though  it  will  have  to  make  Rosanna 
a  little  older  than  Gray,  2  or  3  or  3  or  4  years, 
instead  of  same  age.  I  see  Gray's  mother  at  any 
rate,  with  her  small  means,  in  one  of  the  smaller 
foreign  cities,  Florence  or  Dresden,  probably  the 
latter,  and  also  see  there  Rosanna  and  her  mother, 
this  preceding  by  no  long  time  the  latter's  death. 
Mrs.  Gaw  has  come  abroad  with  her  daughter, 

281 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

for  advantages,  in  the  American  way,  while  the 
husband  and  father  is  immersed  in  business  cares 
at  home;  and  when  the  two  couples,  mother  and 
son,  and  mother  and  daughter,  meet  in  a  natural 
way,  a  connection  is  more  or  less  prepared  by  the 
fact  of  Mr.  Gaw  having  had  the  business  associa 
tion  with  Mrs.  Fielder's  half-brother,  Mr.  Better- 
man,  at  home,  even  though  the  considerably  vio 
lent  rupture  or  split  between  the  two  men  will 
have  already  taken  place.  Mrs.  Gaw  is  a  very 
good  simple,  a  bewildered  and  pathetic  rich 
woman,  in  delicate  health,  and  is  sympathetic  to 
Gray's  mother,  on  whom  she  more  or  less  throws 
herself  for  comfort  and  support,  and  Gray  and 
Rosanna,  Rosanna  with  a  governess  and  all  the 
facilities  and  accessories  natural  to  wealth,  while 
the  boy's  conditions  are  much  leaner  and  plainer 
—the  two,  I  say,  fraternise  and  are  good  friends; 
he  figuring  to  Rosanna  (say  he  is  about  13,  while 
she  is  1 6)  as  a  tremendously  initiated  and  in 
formed  little  polyglot  European,  knowing  France, 
Germany,  Italy  etc.  from  the  first.  It  is  at  this 
juncture  that  Mrs.  Fielder's  second  marriage  has 
come  into  view,  or  the  question  and  the  appear 
ance  of  it;  and  that,  very  simultaneously,  the 
proposal  has  come  over  from  her  half-brother  on 
some  rumour  of  it  reaching  him.  As  already 
mentioned,  Betterman  proposes  to  her  that  if  she 
will  come  back  to  America  with  her  boy,  and  not 
enter  upon  the  union  that  threatens,  and  which 

282 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

must  have  particular  elements  in  it  of  a  nature 
to  displease  and  irritate  him,  he  will  look  after 
them  both,  educate  the  boy  at  home,  do  some 
thing  substantial  for  them.  Mrs.  Fielder  takes 
her  American  friend  into  her  confidence  in  every 
way,  introduces  to  her  the  man  who  desires  to 
marry  her,  whom  Rosanna  sees  and  with  whom 
the  boy  himself  has  made  great  friends,  so  that 
the  dilemma  of  the  poor  lady  becomes  a  great  and 
lively  interest  to  them  all;  the  pretendant  himself 
forming  also  a  very  good  relation  with  the  Ameri 
can  mother  and  daughter,  the  friends  of  his  friend, 
and  putting  to  Mrs.  Gaw  very  eagerly  the  possi 
bility  of  her  throwing  her  weight  into  the  scale  in 
his  favour.  Her  meeting,  that  is  Mrs.  Fielder's 
meeting,  the  proposition  from  New  York  involves 
absolutely  her  breaking  off  with  him;  and  he  is 
very  much  in  love  with  her,  likes  the  boy,  and, 
though  he  doesn't  want  to  stand  in  the  latter's 
light,  has  hopes  that  he  won't  be  quite  thrown 
over.  The  engagement  in  fact,  with  the  marriage 
near  at  hand,  must  be  an  existing  reality.  It  is 
for  Mrs.  Fielder  something  of  a  dilemma;  but  she 
is  very  fond  of  her  honourable  suitor,  and  her  in 
clinations  go  strongly  to  sticking  to  him.  She 
takes  the  boy  himself  into  her  confidence,  young 
as  he  is, — perhaps  I  can  afford  him  a  year  or  two 
more — make  him  15,  say;  in  which  case  Rosanna 
becomes  18,  and  the  subsequent  chronology  is 
thereby  affected.  It  isn't,  I  must  remember,  as 

283 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

a  young  man  in  his  very  first  youth,  at  all,  that  I 
want  Gray,  or  see  him,  with  the  opening  of  the 
story  at  Newport.  On  the  contrary  all  the  pro 
prieties,  elements  of  interest,  convenience  etc., 
are  promoted  by  his  being  not  less  than  30.  I 
don't  see  why  I  shouldn't  make  him  33,  with 
Rosanna  thus  two  years  older,  not  three.  If  he 
is  15  in  Dresden  and  she  17,  it  will  be  old  enough 
for  each,  without  being  too  old,  I  think,  for  Gray. 
1 8  years  will  thus  have  elapsed  from  the  crisis  at 
Florence  or  wherever  to  the  arrival  at  Newport. 
I  want  that  time,  I  think,  I  can  do  with  it  very 
well  for  what  I  see  of  elements  operative  for  him; 
and  a  period  of  some  length  moreover  is  required 
for  bringing  the  two  old  men  at  Newport  to  a 
proper  pitch  of  antiquity.  Mr.  Betterman  dies 
very  much  in  the  fulness  of  years,  and  as  Rosan- 
na's  parent  is  to  pass  away  soon  after  I  want  him 
to  have  come  to  the  end.  If  Gray  is  15,  however, 
I  mustn't  make  his  mother  too  mature  to  inspire 
the  devotion  of  her  friend;  at  the  same  time  that 
there  must  have  been  years  enough  for  her  to 
have  lived  awhile  with  her  first  husband  and  lost 
him.  Of  course  this  first  episode  may  have  been 
very  brief — there  is  nothing  to  prevent  that.  If 
she  had  married  at  20  she  will  then  be,  say,  about 
36  or  so  at  the  time  of  the  crisis,  and  this  will  be 
quite  all  right  for  the  question  of  her  second  mar 
riage.  Say  she  lives  a  considerable  number  of 
years  after  this,  in  great  happiness,  her  marriage 

284 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

having  taken  place;  I  in  fact  require  her  to  do  so, 
for  I  want  Gray  to  have  had  reasons  fairly  strong 
for  his  not  having  been  back  to  America  in  the 
interval.  I  may  put  it  that  he  has,  even,  been 
back  for  a  very  short  time,  on  some  matter  con 
nected  with  his  mother's  interests,  or  his  own,  or 
whatever;  but  I  complicate  the  case  thereby  and 
have  to  deal  somehow  with  the  question  of  whether 
or  no  he  has  then  seen  Mr.  Betterman.  No,  I 
don't  want  him  to  have  been  back,  and  can't  do 
with  it;  keep  this  simple  and  workable.  All  I  am 
doing  here  is  just  to  fix  a  little  his  chronology. 
Say  he  has  been  intending  to  go  over  at  about 
25,  when  his  mother's  death  takes  place,  about  10 
years  after  her  second  marriage.  Say  then,  as  is 
very  conceivable,  that  his  stepfather,  with  whom 
he  has  become  great  friends,  then  requires  and 
appeals  to  his  care  and  interest  in  a  way  that 
keeps  him  on  and  on  till  the  latter's  death  takes 
place  just  previous  to  Mr.  Betterman's  sending 
for  him.  This  gives  me  quite  sufficiently  what  I 
want  of  the  previous  order  of  things;  but  doesn't 
give  me  yet  the  fact  about  Rosanna's  connec 
tion  in  her  young  history  which  I  require.  I  see 
accordingly  what  has  happened  in  Florence  or 
Dresden  as  something  of  this  kind:  that  Mrs. 
Fielder,  having  put  it  to  her  boy  that  he  shall 
decide,  if  he  can,  about  what  they  shall  do,  she 
lets  Mrs.  Gaw,  who  was  at  this  juncture  in  con 
stant  intercourse  with  her,  know  that  she  has 

.   285 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

done  so — Mrs.  Gaw  and  Rosanna  being,  together, 
exceedingly  interested  about  her,  and  Rosanna 
extremely  interested,  in  a  young  dim  friendly 
way,  about  Gray;  very  much  as  if  he  were  the 
younger  brother  she  hasn't  got,  and  whom,  or 
an  older,  she  would  have  given  anything  to  have. 
Rosanna  hates  Mr.  Betterman,  who  has,  as  she 
understands  and  believes,  in  some  iniquitous 
business  way,  wronged  or  swindled  her  father; 
and  isn't  at  all  for  what  he  has  proposed  to  the 
Fielders.  In  addition  she  is  infatuated  with 
Europe,  makes  everything  of  being  there,  dreams, 
or  would  dream,  of  staying  on  if  she  could,  and 
has  already  in  germ,  in  her  mind,  those  feelings 
about  the  dreadful  American  money-world  of 
which  she  figures  as  the  embodiment  or  expres 
sion  in  the  eventual  situation.  She  knows  thus 
that  the  boy  has  had,  practically,  the  decision 
laid  upon  him,  and  with  the  whole  case  with  all 
its  elements  and  possibilities  before  her  she  takes 
upon  herself  to  act  upon  him,  influence  and  de 
termine  him.  She  wouldn't  have  him  accept 
Mr.  Betterman's  cruel  proposition,  as  she  de 
clares  she  sees  it,  for  the  world.  She  proceeds 
with  him  as  she  would  in  fact  with  a  younger 
brother:  there  is  a  passage  to  be  alluded  to  with 
a  later  actuality,  which  figures  for  her  in  memory 
as  her  creation  of  a  responsibility;  her  very  con 
siderably  passionate,  and  thereby  meddlesome,  in 
tervention.  I  see  some  long  beautiful  walk  or 

286 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

stroll,  some  visit  to  some  charming  old  place  or 
things — and  Florence  is  here  indicated — during 
which  she  puts  it  all  to  him,  and  from  which  he, 
much  inspired  and  affected  by  her,  comes  back 
to  say  to  his  mother  that  he  doesn't  want  what  is 
offered — at  any  such  price  as  she  will  have  to 
pay.  I  see  this  occasion  as  really  having  settled 
it — and  Rosanna's  having  always  felt  and  known 
that  it  did.  She  and  her  mother  separate  then 
from  the  others;  Mrs.  Fielder  communicates  her 
refusal,  sticks  to  her  friend,  marries  him  shortly 
afterwards,  and  her  subsequent  years  take  the 
form  I  have  noted.  The  American  mother  and 
daughter  go  back  across  the  sea;  the  mother  in 
time  dies  etc.  I  see  also  how  much  better  it  is 
to  have  sufficient  time  for  these  various  deaths 
to  happen.  But  the  point  is  that  the  sense  of 
responsibility,  begetting  gradually  a  considerable, 
a  deepening  force  of  reflection,  and  even  somewhat 
of  remorse,  as  to  all  that  it  has  meant,  is  what 
has  taken  place  for  Rosanna  in  proportion  as, 
by  the  sequence  of  events  and  the  happening  of 
many  things,  Mr.  Betterman  has  grown  into  an 
apparently  very  rich  old  man  with  no  natural 
heir.  His  losses,  his  bereavements,  I  have  al 
ready  alluded  to>  and  a  considerable  relaxation 
of  her  original  feeling  about  him  in  the  light  of 
more  knowledge  and  of  other  things  that  have 
happened.  In  the  light,  for  instance,  of  her  now 
mature  sense  of  what  her  father's  career  has  been 

287 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

and  of  all  that  his  great  ferocious  fortune,  as  she 
believes  it  to  be,  represents  of  rapacity,  of  finan 
cial  cruelty,  of  consummate  special  ability  etc. 
She  has  kept  to  some  extent  in  touch  with  Gray, 
so  far  that  is  as  knowing  about  his  life  and  gen 
eral  situation  are  concerned;  but  the  element  of 
compunction  in  her  itself,  and  the  sense  of  what 
she  may  perhaps  have  deprived  him  of  in  the 
way  of  a  great  material  advantage,  may  be  very 
well  seen,  I  think,  as  keeping  her  shy  and  back 
ward  in  respect  to  following  him  up  or  remaining 
in  intercourse.  It  isn't  likely,  for  the  American 
truth  of  things,  that  she  hasn't  been  back  to  Eu 
rope  again,  more  than  once,  whether  before  or 
after  her  mother's  death;  but  what  I  can  easily 
and  even  interestingly  see  is  that  on  whatever 
occasion  of  being  there  she  has  yet  not  tried  to 
meet  him  again.  She  knows  that  neither  he  nor 
his  stepfather  are  at  all  well  off,  she  has  a  good 
many  general  impressions  and  has  tried  to  get 
knowledge  of  them,  without  directly  appealing 
for  it  to  themselves,  whenever  she  can.  Thus  it 
is,  to  state  things  very  simpty,  that,  on  hearing 
of  the  stepfather's  death,  during  the  Newport 
summer,  she  has  got  at  Mr.  Betterman  and  spoken 
to  him  about  Gray;  she  has  found  him  accessible 
to  what  she  wants  to  say,  and  has  perceived 
above  all  what  a  pull  it  gives  her  to  be  able  to 
work,  in  her  appeal,  the  fact,  quite  vivid  in  the 
fulness  of  time  to  the  old  man  himself  indeed, 

288 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

that  the  young  man,  so  nearly,  after  all,  related 
to  him,  and  over  there  in  Europe  all  these  years, 
is  about  the  only  person,  who  could  get  at  him 
in  any  way,  who  hasn't  ever  asked  anything  of 
him  or  tried  to  get  something  out  of  him.  Not 
only  this,  but  he  and  his  mother,  in  the  time, 
are  the  only  ones  who  ever  refused  a  proffered 
advantage.  I  think  I  must  make  it  that  Ro- 
sanna  finds  that  she  can  really  tell  her  story  to 
Mr.  Betterman,  can  make  a  confidant  of  him 
and  so  interest  him  only  the  more.  She  feels 
that  he  likes  her,  and  this  a  good  deal  on  account 
of  her  enormous  difference  from  her  father.  But 
I  need  only  put  it  here  quite  simply:  she  does 
interest  him,  she  does  move  him,  and  it  is  as  a 
consequence  of  her  appeal  that  he  sends  for  Gray 
and  that  Gray  comes.  What  I  must  above  all 
take  care  of  is  the  fact  that  she  has  represented 
him  to  the  old  man  as  probably  knowing  less 
about  money,  having  had  less  to  do  with  it,  having 
moved  in  a  world  entirely  outside  of  it,  in  a  de 
gree  utterly  unlike  anyone  and  everyone  whom 
Mr.  Betterman  has  ever  seen. 

But  I  have  got  it  all,  I  needn't  develop;  what 
I  want  now  independently  is  the  beginning,  quite 
back  in  the  early  years,  of  some  relation  on  Gray's 
part  with  Horton  Vint,  and  some  effect,  which  I 
think  I  really  must  find  right,  of  Horton's  having 
done  something  for  him,  in  their  boyish  time, 
something  important  and  gallant,  rather  showy, 

289 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

but  at  all  events  really  of  moment,  which  has 
always  been  present  to  Gray.  This  I  must  find 
—it  need  present  no  difficulty;  with  something 
in  the  general  way  of  their  having  been  at  school 
together — in  Switzerland,  with  the  service  ren 
dered  in  Switzerland,  say  on  a  holiday  cours 
among  the  mountains,  when  Horty  has  fished 
Gray  out  of  a  hole,  I  don't  mean  quite  a  crevasse, 
but  something  like,  or  come  to  his  aid  in  a  tight 
place  of  some  sort,  and  at  his  own  no  small  risk, 
to  bring  him  to  safety.  In  fine  it's  something 
like  having  saved  his  life,  though  that  has  a  tire 
some  little  old  romantic  and  conventional  note. 
However  I  will  make  the  thing  right  and  give  it 
the  right  nuance;  remember  that  it  is  all  al- 
lusional  only  now  and  a  matter  of  reference  on 
Gray's  part.  What  must  have  further  happened, 
I  think,  is  that  Horty  has  been  in  Europe  again, 
in  much  later  years,  after  College,  indeed  only 
a  very  few  years  previous,  and  has  met  Gray 
again  and  they  have  renewed  together;  to  the 
effect  of  his  apprehension  of  Gray's  (to  him) 
utterly  queer  and  helpless  and  unbusinesslike, 
unfinancial,  type;  and  of  Gray's  great  admiration 
of  everything  of  the  opposite  sort  in  him — com 
bined,  that  is,  with  other  very  attractive  (as 
they  appear)  qualities.  He  has  made  Gray  think 
a  lot  about  the  wonderful  American  world  that 
he  himself  long  ago  cut  so  loose  from,  and  of 
which  Horty  is  all  redolent  and  reverberant; 

290 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

and  I  think  must  have  told  him,  most  naturally 
told  him,  of  what  happened  in  the  far  off  time 
in  Florence.  Only  when,  then,  was  the  passage 
of  their  being  at  school,  or,  better  still,  with  the 
Swiss  pasteur,  or  private  tutor,  together  ?  If 
it  was  before  the  episode  in  Florence  they  were 
rather  younger  than  I  seem  to  see  them;  if  it 
was  after  they  were  rather  older.  Yet  I  don't 
at  all  see  why  it  should  not  have  been  just  after 
—this  perfectly  natural  at  16  for  Gray,  at  17  for 
Horty;  both  thoroughly  natural  ages  for  being 
with  the  pasteur,  and  for  the  incident  afterwards; 
Gray  going  very  naturally  to  the  pasteur,  whom 
in  fact  he  may  have  been  with  already  before, 
during  the  first  year  of  his  mother's  new  mar 
riage.  That  provides  for  the  matter  well  enough, 
and  I've  only  to  see  it  to  possess  it;  and  gives 
a  basis  for  their  taking  up  together  somehow 
when  they  meet,  wherever  I  may  put  it,  in  the 
aftertime.  There  are  forms  of  life  for  Gray  and 
his  stepfather  to  be  focussed  as  the  right  ones— 
Horty  sees  this  pair  together  somewhere;  and 
nothing  is  more  arrangeable,  though  I  don't 
think  I  want  to  show  the  latter  as  having  dangled 
and  dawdled  about  Italy  only;  and  on  the  other 
hand  do  see  that  Gray's  occupation  and  main 
interest,  other  than  that  of  looking  after  his  elder 
companions,  must  be  conceived  and  presented 
for  him.  Again  no  difficulty,  however,  with  the 
right  imagination  of  it.  Horty  goes  back  to 

291 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

America;  the  3  or  4,  or  at  the  most  4  or  5,  years 
elapse,  so  that  it  is  with  that  comparative  fresh 
ness  of  mutual  remembrance  that  the  two  men 
meet  again.  What  I  do  see  as  definite  is  that 
Horty  has  had  up  to  the  time  of  Gray's  return 
no  sort  of  relation  whatever  with  Mr.  Better- 
man  or  his  affairs,  or  any  point  of  the  question 
with  which  the  action  begins  at  Newport.  He 
is  on  the  other  hand  in  relation  with  Cissy;  and 
there  are  things  I  have  got  to  account  for  in  his 
actual  situation.  Why  is  he  without  money, 
with  his  interest  in  the  getting  of  it  etc.  ?  But 
that  is  a  question  exactly  of  interest — I  mean 
to  which  the  answer  may  afford  the  greatest. 
And  settle  about  the  degree  of  his  apprehension 
of,  relation  to,  designs  on,  or  general  lively  con 
sciousness  of  Rosanna.  Important  the  fact  that 
the  enormous  extent  of  her  father's  fortune  is 
known  only  after  his  death,  and  is  larger  even 
than  was  supposed;  though  it  is  to  be  remem 
bered  that  in  American  financial  conditions,  with 
the  immense  public  activity  of  money  there  taking 
place,  these  things  are  gauged  in  advance  and  by 
the  general  knowledge,  or  speculative  measure,  as 
the  oldfashioned  private  fortune  couldn't  be. 
But  I  am  here  up  against  the  very  nodus  of  my 
history,  the  facts  of  Horty's  connection  with  the 
affairs  that  come  into  being  for  Gray  under  his 
uncle's  Will;  the  whole  mechanism,  in  fine,  of 
this  part  of  the  action,  the  situation  so  created 

292 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

and  its  consequences.  Enormous  difficulty  of 
pretending  to  show  various  things  here  as  with 
a  business  vision,  in  my  total  absence  of  business 
initiation;  so  that  of  course  my  idea  has  been 
from  the  first  not  to  show  them  with  a  business 
vision,  but  in  some  other  way  altogether;  this 
will  take  much  threshing  out,  but  it  is  the  very 
basis  of  the  matter,  the  core  of  the  subject,  and 
I  shall  worry  it  through  with  patience.  But  I 
must  get  it,  plan  it,  utterly  right  in  advance,  and 
this  is  what  takes  the  doing.  The  other  doing, 
the  use  of  it  when  schemed,  is  comparatively 
easy.  What  strikes  me  first  of  all  is  that  the 
amount  of  money  that  Gray  comes  in  for  must, 
for  reasons  I  needn't  waste  time  in  stating,  so 
obvious  are  they,  be  no  such  huge  one,  by  the 
New  York  measure,  as  in  many  another  case: 
it's  a  tremendous  lot  of  money  for  Gray,  from 
his  point  of  view  and  in  relation  to  his  needs  or 
experience.  Thus  the  case  is  that  if  Mr.  Gaw's 
accumulations  or  whatever  have  distinctly  sur 
passed  expectation,  the  other  old  man's  have 
fallen  much  below  it — or  at  least  have  been  known 
to  be  no  such  great  affair  anyhow.  Various  ques 
tions  come  up  for  me  here,  though  there  is  no 
impossibility  of  settling  them  if  taken  one  by 
one.  The  whole  point  is  of  course  that  Mr.  Bet- 
terman  has  been  a  ruthless  operator  or  whatever, 
and  with  doings  Davey  Bradham  is  able  to  give 
Gray  so  dark  an  account  of;  therefore  if  the 

293 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

mass  of  money  of  the  acquisition  of  which  such 
a  picture  can  be  made  is  not  pretty  big,  the  force 
of  the  picture  falls  a  good  deal  to  the  ground. 
The  difficulty  in  that  event,  in  view  of  the  big 
ness,  is  that  the  conception  of  any  act  on  Hor- 
ton's  part  that  amounts  to  a  swindle  practised 
on  Gray  to  such  a  tremendous  tune  is  neither  a 
desirable  nor  a  possible  one.  As  one  presses  and 
presses  light  breaks — there  are  so  many  ways  in 
which  one  begins  little  by  little  to  wonder  if  one 
may  not  turn  it  about.  There  is  the  way  in  the 
first  place  of  lowering  the  pitch  altogether  of 
the  quantities  concerned  for  either  men.  I  see 
that  from  the  moment  ill-gotten  money  is  con 
cerned  the  essence  of  my  subject  stands  firm 
whatever  the  amount  of  the  same — whatever  the 
amounts  in  either  case.  I  haven't  proposed  from 
the  first  at  all  to  be  definite,  in  the  least,  about 
financial  details  or  mysteries — I  need  hardly  say; 
and  have  even  seen  myself  absolutely  not  stating 
or  formulating  at  all  the  figure  of  the  property 
accruing  to  Gray.  I  haven't  the  least  need  of 
that,  and  can  make  the  absence  of  it  in  fact  a 
positively  good  and  happy  effect.  That  is  an 
immense  gain  for  my  freedom  of  conduct;  and 
in  fine  there  glimmers  upon  me,  there  glimmers 
upon  me—  -!  The  idea,  which  was  vaguely  my 
first,  of  the  absolute  theft  practised  upon  Gray 
by  Horty,  and  which  Gray's  large  appeal  to  his 
cleverness  and  knowledge,  and  large  trust  in  his 

294 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

competence,  his  own  being  nil — this  theft  ac 
cepted  and  condoned  by  Gray  as  a  manner  of 
washing  his  own  hands  of  the  use  of  the  damnosa 
hereditas — this  thinkable  enough  in  respect  to 
some  limited,  even  if  considerable,  amount  etc., 
but  losing  its  virtue  of  conceivability  if  applied 
to  larger  and  more  complicated  things.  Vulgar 
theft  I  don't  want,  but  I  want  something  to  which 
Horty  is  led  on  and  encouraged  by  Gray's  whole 
attitude  and  state  of  mind  face  to  face  with  the 
impression  which  he  gets  over  there  of  so  many 
of  the  black  and  merciless  things  that  are  behind 
the  great  possessions.  I  want  Gray  absolutely 
to  inherit  the  money,  to  have  it,  to  have  had  it, 
and  to  let  it  go;  and  it  seems  to  me  that  a  whole 
element  of  awkwardness  will  be  greatly  minimised 
for  me  if  I  never  exactly  express,  or  anything  like 
it,  what  the  money  is.  The  difficulty  is  in  seeing 
any  one  particular  stroke  by  which  Horty  can 
do  what  he  wants;  it  will  have  to  be  much  rather 
a  whole  train  of  behaviour,  a  whole  process  of 
depredation  and  misrepresentation,  which  con 
stitutes  his  delinquency.  This,  however,  would 
be  and  could  be  only  an  affair  of  time;  and  my 
whole  intention,  a  straight  and  compact  action, 
would  suffer  from  this.  What  I  originally  saw 
was  the  fact  of  Gray's  detection  of  Horty  in  a 
piece  of  extremely  ingenious  and  able  malversa 
tion  of  his  funds,  the  care  of  which  he  has  made 
over  to  him,  and  the  then  determination  on  his 

295 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

part  simply  to  show  the  other  in  silence  that  he 
understands,  and  on  consideration  will  do  nothing; 
this  being,  he  feels  in  his  wrought-up  condition 
after  what  he  has  learnt  about  the  history  of  the 
money,  the  most  congruous  way  of  his  ceasing 
himself  to  be  concerned  with  it  and  of  resigning 
it  to  its  natural  associations.  That  was  the  es 
sence  of  my  subject,  and  I  see  as  much  in  it  as 
ever;  only  I  see  too  that  it  is  imaginable  about 
a  comparatively  small  pecuniary  interest  much 
more  than  about  a  great.  It  has  to  depend  upon 
the  kind  of  malpractice  involved;  and  I  am  partly 
tempted  to  ask  myself  whether  Horty's  con 
nection  with  the  situation  may  not  be  thinkable 
as  having  begun  somewhat  further  back.  One 
thing  is  certain,  however;  I  don't  want  any 
hocus-pocus  about  the  Will  itself — which  an  an 
terior  connection  for  H.  would  more  or  less  amount 
to:  I  want  it  just  as  I  have  planned  it  up  to  the 
edge  of  the  circle  in  which  his  misdeed  is  per 
petrated.  What  glimmers  upon  me,  as  I  said  just 
now,  is  the  conception  of  an  extreme  frankness 
of  understanding  between  the  two  young  men 
on  the  question  of  Gray's  inaptitudes,  which  at 
first  are  not  at  all  disgusts — because  he  doesn't 
know,  but  which  makes  them,  the  two,  have  it 
out  together  at  an  early  stage.  Yes,  there 
glimmers,  there  glimmers;  something  really  more 
interesting,  I  think,  than  the  mere  nefarious  act; 
something  like  a  profoundly  nefarious  attitude, 

296 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

or  even  genius:  I  see,  I  really  think  I  see,  the 
real  fine  truth  of  the  matter  in  that.  With  which 
I  keep  present  to  me  the  whole  significance  and 
high  dramatic  value  of  the  part  played  in  the 
action  by  Cissy  Foy;  have  distinct  to  me  her 
active  function  as  a  wheel  in  the  machine.  How 
it  isn't  simply  Gray  and  Horty  at  all,  but  Gray 
and  Horty  and  her\  how  it  isn't  She  and  Gray, 
any  more  than  it's  She  and  Horty,  simply,  but 
is  for  her  too  herself  and  the  two  men:  in  which 
I  see  possibilities  of  the  most  interesting.  But 
I  must  put  her  on  her  feet  perfectly  in  order  to 
see  as  I  should.  Without  at  all  overstraining  the 
point  of  previous  contacts  for  Gray  with  these 
three  or  four  others — than  which  even  at  the 
worst  there  is  nothing  in  the  world  more  veri- 
similitudinous — I  want  some  sort  of  relation  for 
him  with  her  started^  this  being  a  distinct 
economy,  purchased  by  no  extravagance,  and 
seeing  me,  to  begin  with,  so  much  further  on 
my  way.  And  who,  when  I  bethink  myself, 
have  his  contacts  been  with,  after  all,  over  there, 
but  Horty  and  Rosanna — the  relation  to  Mr. 
Betterman  being  but  of  the  mere  essence.  Of 
the  people  who  matter  the  Bradhams  are  new 
to  him,  and  that  is  all  right;  Cissy  may  have 
been  seen  of  him  on  some  occasion  over  there 
that  is  quite  recent,  as  recent  as  I  like;  all  the 
more  that  I  must  remember  how  if  I.  want  her 
truly  a  Girl  I  must  mind  what  I'm  about  with 

297 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

the  age  I'm  attributing  to  Gray.  I  want  a  dis 
parity,  but  not  too  great,  at  the  same  time  that 
though  I  want  her  a  Girl,  I  want  her  not  too 
young  a  one  either.  Everything  about  her,  her 
intelligence,  character,  sense  of  life  and  knowl 
edge  of  it,  imply  a  certain  experience  and  a  cer 
tain  time  for  that.  The  great  fact  is  that  she  is 
the  poor  Girl,  and  the  "exceptionally  clever,"  in 
a  society  of  the  rich,  living  her  life  with  them, 
and  more  or  less  by  their  bounty;  being,  I  seem 
to  see,  already  a  friend  and  protegee  of  Rosanna's, 
though  it  isn't  Rosanna  but  the  Bradhams  who 
put  her  in  relation  with  Gray,  whether  designedly 
or  not.  I  seem  to  run  here  the  risk  a  bit  of  ex 
posure  to  the  charge  of  more  or  less  repeating 
the  figure  of  Charlotte  in  The  Golden  Bowl,  with 
the  Bradhams  repeating  even  a  little  the  As- 
singhams  in  that  fiction;  but  I  shake  this  re 
flection  off,  as  having  no  weight  beyond  duly 
warning;  the  situation  being  such  another  affair 
and  the  real  characteristics  and  exhibited  pro 
ceedings  of  these  three  persons  being  likewise  so 
other.  Say  something  shall  have  passed  between 
Cissy  at  a  then  25,  or  24  at  most,  and  Gray  "on 
the  other  side";  this  a  matter  of  but  two  or  three 
occasions,  interesting  to  him,  shortly  before  his 
stepfather's  death — a  person  with  whom  she  has 
then  professed  herself  greatly  struck,  to  whom 
she  has  been  somehow  very  "nice":  a  circum 
stance  pleasing  and  touching  at  the  time  to  Gray, 

298 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

given  his  great  attachment  to  that  charming,  or 
at  any  rate  to  Gray  very  attaching,  though  for 
us  slightly  mysterious,  character.  Say  even  if 
it  doesn't  take,  or  didn't,  too  much  exhibition  or 
insistence,  that  the  meeting  has  been  with  the 
stepfather  only,  who  has  talked  with  her  about 
Gray,  made  a  point  of  Gray,  wished  she  could 
know  Gray,  excited  her  interest  and  prepared 
her  encounter  for  Gray,  in  some  conditions  in 
which  Gray  has  been  temporarily  absent  from 
him.  Say  this  little  intercourse  has  taken  place 
at  some  "health  resort",  some  sanatorium  or 
other  like  scene  of  possibilities,  where  the  step 
father,  for  whom  I  haven't  even  yet  a  name,  is 
established,  making  his  cure,  staving  off  the 
affection  of  which  he  dies,  while  this  interesting 
young  American  creature  is  also  there  in  at 
tendance  on  some  relative  whom  she  also  has 
since  lost.  I  multiply  my  orphans  rather,  Char 
lotte  too  having  been  an  orphan;  but  I  can  keep 
this  girl  only  a  half-orphan  perhaps  if  I  like.  I 
kind  of  want  her,  for  the  sake  of  the  character 
istic,  to  have  a  mother,  without  a  father;  in 
which  case  her  mother,  who  hasn't  died,  but  got 
better,  will  have  been  her  companion  at  the 
health  resort;  though  it  breaks  a  little  into  my 
view  of  the  girl's  dependence,  her  isolation  etc., 
her  living  so  much  with  these  other  people,  if 
her  mother  is  about.  On  the  other  hand  the 
mother  may  be  as  gently  but  a  charge  the  more 

299 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

for  her,  and  so  in  a  manner  conducive;  though 
it's  a  detail,  at  any  rate,  settling  itself  as  I  get 
in  close — and  she  would  be  at  the  worst  the  only 
mother  in  the  business.  What  I  seem  to  like  to 
have  at  all  events  is  that  Gray  and  Cissy,  have 
not  met,  yet  have  been  in  this  indirect  relation 
— complicated  further  by  the  fact  of  her  existing 
"friendship0,  say,  as  a  temporary  name  for  it, 
with  Horton  Vint.  She  arrives  thus  with  her 
curiosity,  her  recollections,  her  intelligence — for, 
there's  no  doubt  about  it,  I  am,  rather  as  usual, 
offering  a  group  of  the  personally  remarkable, 
in  a  high  degree,  all  round.  Augusta  Bradham, 
really,  is  about  the  only  stupid  one,  the  only  ap 
proach  to  a  fool,  though  she  too  in  her  way  is 
a  force,  a  driving  one — that  is  the  whole  point; 
which  happens  to  mark  a  difference  also,  so  far 
good,  from  the  Assinghams,  where  it  was  the 
wife  who  had  the  intelligence  and  the  husband 
who  was  in  a  manner  the  fool.  The  fact  of  the 
personal  values,  so  to  call  them,  thus  clustered, 
I  of  course  not  only  accept,  but  cherish;  that 
they  are  each  the  particular  individual  of  the 
particular  weight  being  of  course  of  the  essence 
of  my  donnee.  They  are  interesting  that  way 
— I  have  no  use  for  them  here  in  any  other. 

Horton  has  meanwhile  become  in  a  sort  tied 
up  with  Cissy,  as  she  has  with  him;  through  the 
particular  conditions  of  their  sentiment  for  each 
other — she  in  love  with  him,  so  far  as  she,  by  her 

300 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

conviction  and  theory,  has  allowed  herself  to  go 
in  that  direction  for  a  man  without  money,  though 
destined  somehow  to  have  it,  as  she  feels;  and  he 
in  love  with  her  under  the  interdict  of  a  parity 
of  attitude  on  the  whole  "interested"  question. 
The  woman  whom  he  would  give  truly  one  of  his 
limbs  to  commend  himself  to  is  Rosanna,  who 
perfectly  knows  it  and  for  whom  he  serves  as 
the  very  compendium  and  symbol  of  that  danger 
of  her  being  approached  only  on  that  ground,  the 
ground  of  her  wealth,  which  is,  by  all  the  mis 
trusts  and  terrors  it  creates,  the  deep  note  of  her 
character  and  situation;  that  he  serves  to  her  as 
the  very  type  of  what  she  most  dreads,  not  only 
the  victory,  but  the  very  approach  of  it,  almost 
constituting  thus  a  kind  of  frank  relation,  a  kind 
of  closeness  of  contact  between  them,  that  in 
volves  for  her  almost  a  sinister  (or  whatever) 
fascination.  It  is  between  him  and  my  ambitious 
young  woman  (I  call  her  ambitious  to  simplify) 
that  they  are  in  a  manner  allies  in  what  may  be 
called  their  "attitude  to  society";  the  frankness 
of  their  recognition,  on  either  side,  that  in  a  world 
of  money  they  can't  not  go  in  for  it,  and  that 
accordingly  so  long  as  neither  has  it,  they  can't 
go  in  for  each  other:  though  how  each  would — 
each  makes  the  other  feel — if  it  could  all  be  only 
on  a  different  basis !  Horty's  attitude  is  that  he's 
going  to  have  it  somehow,  and  he  to  a  certain 
extent  infects  her  with  this  conviction — but  that 

301 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

he  doesn't  wholly  do  so  is  exactly  part  of  the  evi 
dence  as  to  that  latent  limitation  of  the  general 
trust  in  him  which  I  must  a  good  deal  depend  on 
to  explain  how  it  is  that,  with  his  ability,  or  the 
impression  of  this  that  he  also  produces,  he  hasn't 
come  on  further.  Deep  down  in  the  girl  is  her 
element  of  participation  in  this  mistrust  too — 
which  is  part  of  the  reason  why  she  hangs  back, 
in  spite  of  the  kind  of  attraction  he  has  for  her, 
from  any  consent  to,  say,  marry  him.  He,  for 
that  matter,  hasn't  in  the  least  urged  the  case 
either — it  hasn't  been  in  him  up  to  now,  in  spite 
of  a  failure  or  two,  in  spite  of  the  failure  notably 
with  Rosanna,  to  close  by  a  positive  act  the  al 
ways  possibly  open  door  to  his  marrying  money. 
I  see  the  recognition  of  all  this  between  them  as 
of  well-nigh  the  crudest  and  the  most  typical, 
the  most  "modern";  in  fact  I  see  their  relation 
as  of  a  highly  exhibitional  value  and  interest. 
What  the  Girl  indeed  doesn't,  and  doesn't  want 
to  (up  to  now)  express,  is  exactly  that  limit,  and 
the  ground  of  it,  of  her  faith  in  him  as  a  financial 
conqueror.  She  is  willing  more  or  less  to  believe, 
to  confide,  in  his  own  confidence — she  sees  him 
indeed  as  more  probably  than  not  marked  for 
triumphant  acquisition;  but  the  latent,  "deep 
down"  thing  is  her  wonderment  as  to  the  char 
acter  of  his  methods — if  the  so-called  straight 
ones  won't  have  served  or  sufficed.  She  sees  him 
as  a  fine  adventurer — which  is  a  good  deal  too 

302 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

how  she  sees  herself;  but  almost  crude  though 
I  have  called  their  terms  of  mutual  understanding 
it  hasn't  come  up  for  them,  and  I  think  it  is  ab 
solutely  never  to  come  up  for  them,  that  she  so 
far  faces  this  question  of  his  "honour",  or  of 
any  capacity  in  him  for  deviation  from  it,  as 
even  to  conjure  it  away.  There  are  depths  within 
depths  between  them — and  I  think  I  understand 
what  I  mean  if  I  say  there  are  also  shallows  be 
side  shallows.  They  give  each  other  rope  and 
yet  at  the  same  time  remain  tied;  that  for  the 
moment  is  a  sufficient  formula — once  I  keep  the 
case  lucid  as  to  what  their  tie  is. 

What  accordingly  does  her  situation  in  respect 
to  Gray  come  to,  and  how  do  I  see  it  work  out  ? 
The  answer  to  that  involves  of  course  the  ques 
tion  of  what  his,  in  respect  to  her,  comes  to,  and 
what  it  gives  me  for  interest.  She  has  got  her 
original  impression  about  him  over  there  as  of 
the  man  without  means  to  speak  of;  but  it  is  as 
the  heir  to  a  fortune  that  she  now  first  sees  him, 
and  as  the  person  coming  in  virtue  of  that  into 
the  world  she  lives  in,  where  her  power  to  guide, 
introduce  and  generally  help  and  aid  and  com 
fort  him,  shows  from  the  first  as  considerable. 
She  strikes  him  at  once  as  the  creature,  in  all 
this  world,  the  most  European  and  the  most 
capable  of,  as  it  were,  understanding  him  in 
tellectually,  entering  into  his  tastes  etc.  He  recog 
nises  quickly  that,  putting  Davey  Bradham 

303 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

perhaps  somewhat  aside,  she  is  the  being,  up  and 
down  the  place,  with  whom  he  is  going  to  be  able 
most  to  communicate.  With  Rosanna  he  isn't 
going  to  communicate  "intellectually",  aesthet 
ically,  and  all  the  rest,  the  least  little  bit:  Rosanna 
has  no  more  taste  than  an  elephant;  Rosanna 
is  only  morally  elephantine,  or  whatever  it  is 
that  is  morally  most  massive  and  magnificent. 
What  I  want  is  to  get  my  right  firm  joints,  each 
working  on  its  own  hinge,  and  forming  together 
the  play  of  my  machine:  they  are  the  machine, 
and  when  each  of  them  is  settled  and  determined 
it  will  work  as  I  want  it.  The  first  of  these,  def 
initely,  is  that  Gray  does  inherit,  has  inherited. 
The  next  is  that  he  is  face  to  face  with  what  it 
means  to  have  inherited.  The  next  to  that  is 
that  one  of  the  things  it  means — though  this 
isn't  the  light  in  which  he  first  sees  the  fact — is 
that  the  world  immensely  opens  to  him,  and  that 
one  of  the  things  it  seems  most  to  give  him,  to  of 
fer  and  present  to  him,  is  this  brilliant,  or  what 
ever,  and  interesting  young  woman.  He  doesn't 
at  first  at  all  see  her  in  the  light  of  her  making  up 
to  him  on  account  of  his  money;  she  is  too  little 
of  a  crudely  interested  specimen  for  that,  and 
too  sincere  in  fact  to  herself — feeling  very  much 
about  him  that  she  would  certainly  have  been 
drawn  to  him,  after  this  making  of  acquaintance, 
even  if  no  such  advantages  attached  to  him  and 
he  had  remained  what  he  had  been  up  to  then. 

304 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

But  all  the  same  it  is  a  Joint,  and  we  see  that  it 
is  by  seeing  her  as  we  shall;  I  mean  I  make  it 
and  keep  it  one  by  showing  "what  goes  on"  be 
tween  herself  and  Horton.  I  have  blessedly  that 
view,  that  alternation  of  view,  for  my  process 
throughout  the  action.  The  determination  of 
her  interest  towards  him — that  then  is  a  Joint. 
And  let  me  make  the  point  just  here  that  at  first 
he  has  nothing  but  terror,  but  horror,  of  seeing 
himself  affected  as  Rosanna  has  been  by  her 
own  situation — from  the  moment,  that  is,  he 
begins  to  take  in  that  she  is  so  affected.  He 
takes  this  in  betimes  from  various  signs — before 
that  passes  between  them  which  gives  him  her 
case  in  the  full  and  lucid  way  in  which  he  comes 
to  have  it.  She  gives  it  to  him  presently — but 
at  first  as  her  own  simply,  holding  her  hand  en 
tirely  from  intimating  that  his  need  be  at  all 
like  it;  as  she  must  do,  for  that  matter,  given 
the  fact  that  it  is  really  through  her  action  that 
he  was  brought  over  to  see  his  uncle.  She  thinks 
her  feelings  about  her  own  case  right  and  in 
evitable  for  herself;  but  I  want  to  make  it  an 
interesting  and  touching  inconsistency  in  her 
that  she  desires  not  to  inspire  him,  in  respect 
to  his  circumstances,  with  any  correspondingly 
justified  sense.  Definite  is  it  that  what  he  learns, 
he  learns  not  the  least  mite  from  herself,  though 
after  a  while  he  comes  quite  to  challenge  her  on 
it,  but  from  Davey  Bradham,  so  far  as  he  learns 

305 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

it,  for  the  most  part,  concretely  and  directly — 
as  many  other  impressions  as  I  can  suggest  help 
ing  besides.  I  want  him  at  all  events  to  have  a 
full  large  clear  moment  or  season  of  exhilaration, 
of  something  like  intoxication,  over  the  change 
in  his  conditions,  before  questions  begin  to  come 
up.  An  essential  Joint  is  constituted  by  their 
beginning  to  come  up,  and  the  difference  that  this 
begins  to  make.  What  I  want  of  Davey  Brad- 
ham  is  that  he  is  a  determinant  in  this  shift  of 
Gray's  point  of  view,  though  I  want  also  (and 
my  scenario  has  practically  provided  for  that) 
that  the  immediate  amusement  of  his  contact 
with  Davey  shall  be  quite  compatible  with  his 
not  yet  waking  up,  not  yet  seeing  questions  loom. 
I  must  keep  it  well  before  me  too  that  his  whole 
enlarged  vision  of  the  money-world,  so  much 
more  than  any  other  sort  of  world,  that  all  these 
people  constitute,  operates  inevitably  by  itself, 
promotes  infinite  reflection,  makes  a  hundred 
queer  and  ugly  things,  a  thousand,  ten  thousand, 
glare  at  him  right  and  left.  A  Joint  again  is  con 
stituted  by  Gray's  first  consciousness  of  malaise, 
first  determination  of  malaise,  in  the  presence  of 
more  of  a  vision,  and  more  and  more  impression 
of  everything;  which  determination,  as  I  call  it, 
I  want  to  proceed  from  some  sense  in  him  of 
Cissy's  attitude  as  affected  by  his  own  reactions, 
exhibition  of  questions,  wonderments  and,  to  put 
it  simply  and  strongly,  rising  disgusts.  She  has 

306 


THE   IVORY  TOWER 

appealed  to  him  at  the  outset,  on  his  first  appre 
hension  of  her,  exactly  as  a  poor  girl  who  wasn't 
meant  to  be  one,  who  has  been  formed  by  her 
nature  and  her  experience  to  rise  to  big  brilliant 
conditions,  carry  them,  take  them  splendidly,  in 
fine  do  all  justice  to  them;  this  under  all  the  first 
flush  of  what  I  have  called  his  own  exhilaration. 
He  hasn't  then  committed  himself,  in  the  vulgar 
sense,  at  all — had  only  committed  himself,  that  is, 
to  the  appearance  of  being  interested  and  charmed: 
his  imaginative  expansion  for  that  matter  being 
naturally  too  great  to  permit  for  the  moment  of 
particular  concentration  or  limitations.  But 
isn't  his  incipient  fear  of  beginning  to  be,  of 
becoming,  such  another  example,  to  put  it  com 
prehensively,  as  Rosanna,  doesn't  this  proceed 
precisely  from  the  stir  in  him  of  certain  discon 
certing,  complicating,  in  fact  if  they  go  a  little 
further  quite  blighting,  wonderments  in  respect  to 
Cissy's  possibilities  ?  She  throws  her  weight  with 
him  into  the  happy  view  of  his  own;  which  is  what 
he  likes  her,  wants  her,  at  first  encourages  her  to 
do,  lending  himself  to  it  while  he  feels  himself, 
as  it  were,  all  over.  Mrs.  Bradham,  all  the  while, 
backs  her  up  and  backs  him  up,  and  is  in  general 
as  crude  and  hard  and  blatant,  as  vulgar  is  what 
it  essentially  comes  to,  in  her  exhibited  desire 
to  bring  about  their  engagement,  as  is  exactly 
required  for  producing  on  him  just  the  wrong 
effect.  Gray's  tone  to  the  girl  becomes,  again 

307 


THE   IVORY  TOWER 

to  simplify:  "Oh  yes,  it's  all  right  that  you  should 
be  rich,  should  have  all  the  splendid  things  of 
this  world;  but  I  don't  see,  I'm  not  sure,  of  its 
being  in  the  least  right  that  /  should — while  I 
seem  to  be  making  out  more  and  more,  round 
me,  how  so  many  of  them  are  come  by."  It  is 
the  insistence  on  them,  the  way  everyone,  among 
that  lot  at  any  rate,  appears  aware  of  no  values 
but  those,  that  sets  up  more  and  more  its  effect 
on  his  nerves,  his  moral  nerves  as  it  were,  and  his 
reflective  imagination.  The  girl  counters  to  this 
of  course — she  isn't  so  crude  a  case  as  not  to; 
she  denies  that  she's  the  sort  of  existence  that 
he  thus  imputes — all  the  while  that  she  only 
sees  in  his  attitude  and  his  position  a  kind  of 
distinction  that  would  simply  add  to  their  situa 
tion,  simply  gild  and  after  a  fashion  decorate  it, 
were  she  to  marry  him.  I  want  to  make  another 
Joint  with  her  beginning,  all  the  same,  to  doubt 
of  him,  to  think  him  really  perhaps  capable  of 
strange  and  unnatural  things,  which  she  doesn't 
yet  see  at  all  clearly;  but  which  take  the  form 
for  her  of  his  possibly  handing  over  great  chunks 
of  his  money  to  public  services  and  interests,  de 
ciding  to  be  munificent  with  it,  after  the  fashion 
of  Rockefellers  and  their  like:  though  with  the 
enormous  difference  that  his  resources  are  not 
in  the  slightest  degree  of  that  calibre.  He's  rich, 
yes,  but  not  rich  enough  to  remain  rich  if  he  goes 
in  for  that  sort  of  overdone  idealism.  Some  pas- 

308 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

sage  bearing  on  this  takes  place,  I  can  see,  about 
at  the  time  when  he  has  the  so  to  call  it  momentous 
season,  or  scene,  or  whatever,  of  confidence  or 
exchange  with  Rosanna  in  which  she  goes  the 
whole  "figure",  as  they  say,  and  puts  to  him 
that  exactly  her  misery  is  in  having  come  in  for 
resources  that  should  enable  her  to  do  immense 
things,  but  that  are  so  dishonoured  and  stained 
and  blackened  at  their  very  roots,  that  it  seems 
to  her  that  they  carry  their  curse  with  them,  and 
that  she  asks  herself  what  application  to  "be 
nevolence"  as  commonly  understood,  can  purge 
them,  can  make  them  anything  but  continuators, 
somehow  or  other,  of  the  wrongs  in  which  they 
had  their  origin.  This,  dramatically  speaking,  is 
momentous  for  Gray,  and  it  makes  a  sort  of 
clearing  up  to  realities  between  him  and  Ro 
sanna  which  offers  itself  in  its  turn,  distinctly, 
as  a  Joint.  It  makes  its  mark  for  value,  has  an 
effect,  leaves  things  not  as  they  were. 

But  meanwhile  what  do  I  see  about  Horton, 
about  the  situation  between  them,  so  part  and 
parcel  of  the  situation  between  Gray  and  Cissy 
and  between  Horton  and  Cissy.  Absolute  the 
importance,  I  of  course  recognise,  of  such  a  pre 
sentation  of  matters  between  her  and  Horton, 
and  Horton  and  her,  as  shall  stand  behind  and 
under  everything  that  takes  place  from  this  point. 
In  my  adumbration  of  a  scenario  for  these  earlier 
aspects  I  have  provided,  I  think,  for  this;  at  any 

309 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

rate  I  do  hereby  provide.  I  want  to  give  the 
effect,  for  all  it's  worth,  of  their  being  constantly, 
chronically,  naturally  and,  for  my  drama,  deter- 
minatively,  in  communication;  with  which  it 
more  and  more  comes  to  me  that  when  the  great 
coup  of  the  action  effects  itself  Gray  shall  have 
been  brought  to  it  as  much  by  the  forces  deter 
mining  it  on  her  behalf,  in  relation  to  her,  in  a 
word,  as  by  those  determining  it  in  connection 
with  Horton.  She  helps  him  to  his  solution  about 
as  much  as  Horton  does,  and,  lucidly,  logically, 
ever  so  interestingly,  everything  between  them 
up  to  the  verge  is  but  a  preparation  for  that. 
Enormous  meanwhile  the  relation  with  Horton 
constituted  by  his  making  over  to  this  dazzling 
person  (by  whom  moreover  he  wants  to  be,  con 
sents  to  be,  dazzled)  the  care  or  administration 
of  his  fortune;  for  which  highly  characteristic, 
but  almost,  in  its  freehandedness,  abnormally, 
there  must  have  been  preparation,  absolutely, 
and  oh,  as  I  can  see,  ever  so  interestingly,  in  Book 
2,  the  section  containing  his  face  to  face  parts 
with  Mr.  Betterman.  It  comes  to  me  as  awfully 
fine,  given  the  way  in  which  I  represent  the  old 
dying  man  as  affected  and  determined,  to  sweep 
away  everything  in  the  matter  of  precautions 
and  usualisms,  provisions  for  trusteeships  and 
suchlike,  and  lump  the  whole  thing  straight  on 
to  the  young  man,  without  his  having  a  condi 
tion  or  a  proviso  to  consider.  What  I  have  wanted 

310 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

is  that  he  should  at  a  stroke,  as  it  were,  in  those 
last  enshrouded,  but  perfectly  possessed  hours, 
make  over  his  testament  utterly  and  entirely, 
in  the  most  simplified  way  possible;  in  short  by 
a  sweeping  codicil  that  annihilates  what  he  has 
done  before  and  puts  Gray  in  what  I  want  practi 
cally  to  count  as  unconditioned  possession.  Thank 
the  Lord  I  have  only  to  give  the  effect  of  this,  for 
which  I  can  trust  myself,  without  going  into  the 
ghost  of  a  technicality,  any  specialising  demon 
stration.  I  need  scarcely  tell  myself  that  I  don't 
by  this  mean  that  Gray  makes  over  matters  def 
initely  and  explicitly  to  Horton  at  once,  with 
attention  called  to  the  tightness  with  which  his 
eyes  are  shut  and  all  his  senses  stopped  or  averted; 
but  that  naturally  and  inevitably,  also  interest 
ingly,  this  result  proceeds,  in  fact  very  directly 
and  promptly  springs,  from  his  viewing  and 
treating  his  friend  as  his  best  and  cleverest  and 
vividest  adviser — whom  he  only  doesn't  rather 
abjectly  beg  to  take  complete  and  irresponsible 
charge  because  he  is  ashamed  of  doing  so.  Two 
things  very  definite  here;  one  being  that  Gray 
isn't  in  the  least  blatant  or  glorious  about  his 
want,  absolutely  phenomenal  in  that  world,  of 
any  faint  shade  of  business  comprehension  or 
imagination,  but  is  on  the  contrary  so  rather 
helplessly  ashamed  of  it  that  he  keeps  any  atti 
tude  imputable  to  him  as  much  as  possible  out 
of  the  question — and  in  fact  proceeds  in  the  way 

3" 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

I  know.  He  has  moments  of  confidence — he 
tells  Rosanna,  makes  a  clean  breast  to  her  and 
with  Horton  doesn't  need  to  be  explicit,  beyond 
a  point,  since  all  his  conduct  expresses  it.  What 
happens  is  that  little  by  little,  inevitably,  as  a 
consequence  of  first  doing  this  for  him  and  then 
doing  that  and  then  the  other,  Horton  more  and 
more  gets  control,  gets  a  kind  of  unlimited  play 
of  hand  in  the  matter  which  practically  amounts 
to  a  sort  of  general  power  of  attorney;  as  Gray 
falls  into  the  position,  under  a  feeling  insur 
mountably  directing  him,  of  signing  anything, 
everything,  that  Horton  brings  to  him  for  the 
purpose — but  only  what  Horton  brings.  The 
state  of  mind  and  vision  and  feeling,  the  state 
of  dazzlement  with  reserves  and  reflections,  the 
play  of  reserves  and  reflections  with  dazzlement 
(which  is  my  convenient  word  covering  here  all 
that  I  intend  and  prefigure)  is  a  part  of  the  very 
essence  of  my  subject — which  in  fine  I  perfectly 
possess.  What  happens  is,  further,  that,  even 
with  the  rapidity  which  is  of  the  remarkable 
nature  of  the  case,  Horton  shows  for  a  more  and 
more  monied,  or  call  it  at  first  a  less  and  less  non- 
monied  individual;  with  an  undisguisedness  in 
this  respect  which  of  itself  imposes  and,  vulgarly 
speaking,  succeeds.  I  express  these  things  here 
crudely  and  summarily,  by  rude  signs  and  hints, 
in  order  to  express  them  at  all;  but  what  is  of  so 
high  an  interest,  and  so  bright  and  characteristic, 

312 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

is  that  Horton  is  "splendid'*,  plausible,  delight 
ful,  because  exactly  so  logical  and  happily  sug 
gestive,  about  all  this;  he  puts  it  to  Gray  that 
of  course  he  is  helping  himself  by  helping  Gray, 
that  of  course  his  connection  with  Gray  does  him 
good  in  the  business  world  and  gives  him  such 
help  to  do  things  for  himself  as  he  has  never  be 
fore  had.  I  needn't  abound  in  this  sense  here, 
I  am  too  well  possessed  of  what  I  see — as  I  find 
myself  in  general  more  and  more.  A  tremendous 
Joint  is  formed,  in  all  this  connection,  when  the 
first  definite  question  begins  to  glimmer  upon 
Gray,  under  some  intimation,  suggestion,  im 
pression,  springing  up  as  dramatically  as  I  can 
make  it,  as  to  what  Horton  is  really  doing  with 
him,  and  as  to  whether  or  no  he  shall  really  try 
to  find  out.  That  question  of  whether  or  no  he 
shall  becomes  the  question;  just  as  the  way  he 
answers  it,  not  all  at  once,  but  under  further 
impressions  invoked,  becomes  a  thing  of  the 
liveliest  interest  for  us;  becomes  a  consideration 
the  climax  of  which  represents  exactly  the  Joint 
that  is  in  a  sense  the  climax  of  the  Joints.  He 
sees — well  what  I  see  him  see,  and  it  is  of  course 
not  at  all  this  act  of  vision  in  itself,  but  what 
takes  place  in  consequence  of  it,  and  the  process 
of  confrontation,  reflection,  resolution,  that  en 
sues — it  is  this  that  brings  me  up  to  my  high 
point  of  beautiful  difficulty  and  clarity.  An  ex 
quisite  quality  of  representation  here  of  course 

313 


THE   IVORY  TOWER 

comes  in,  with  everything  that  is  involved  to 
make  it  rich  and  interesting.  A  Joint  here,  a 
Joint  of  the  Joint,  for  perfect  flexible  working,  is 
Horton's  vision  of  his  vision,  and  Horton's  ex 
hibited  mental,  moral  audacity  of  certainty  as 
to  what  that  may  mean  for  himself.  There  is 
a  scene  of  course  in  which,  between  them,  this 
is  what  it  can  only  be  provisionally  gross  and 
approximate  to  call  settled :  as  to  which  I  needn't 
insist  further,  it's  there ;  what  I  want  is  there; 
I've  only  to  pull  it  out:  it's  all  there,  heaped  up 
and  pressed  together  and  awaiting  the  properest 
hand.  So  much  just  now  for  that. 

As  to  Cissy  Foy  meanwhile,  the  case  seems  to 
me  to  clear  up  and  clear  up  to  the  last  perfection; 
or  to  be  destined  and  committed  so  to  do,  at  any 
rate,  as  one  presses  it  with  the  right  pressure. 
How  shall  I  put  it  for  the  moment,  her  case,  in 
the  very  simplest  and  most  rudimentary  terms  ? 
She  sees  the  improvement  in  Horton's  situation, 
she  assists  at  it,  it  gives  her  pleasure,  it  even  to 
a  certain  extent  causes  her  wonder,  but  a  wonder 
which  the  pleasure  only  perches  on,  so  to  speak, 
and  converts  to  its  use;  so  does  the  vision  ap 
peal  to  her  and  hold  her  of  the  exercise  on  his 
part,  the  more  vivid  exercise  than  any  she  has 
yet  been  able  to  enjoy  an  exhibition  of,  of  the 
ability  and  force,  the  doing  and  man-of-action 
quality,  as  to  the  show  of  which  he  has  up  to  now 
been  so  hampered.  She  likes  his  success  at  last, 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

plainly,  and  he  has  it  from  her  that  she  likes  it; 
she  likes  to  let  him  know  that  she  likes  it,  and 
we  have  her  for  the  time  in  contemplation,  as 
it  were,  of  these  two  beautiful  cases  of  possession 
and  acquisition,  out  of  which  indeed  poor  little 
impecunious  she  gets  as  yet  no  direct  advantage, 
but  which  are  somehow  together  there  for  her 
with  a  kind  of  glimmering  looming  option  well 
before  her  as  to  how  they  shall  come  yet  to  con 
cern  her.  Awfully  interesting  and  attractive,  as 
one  says,  to  mark  the  point  (such  a  Joint  this !) 
at  which  the  case  begins  to  glimmer  for  Gray 
about  her,  as  it  has  begun  to  glimmer  for  him 
about  Horton.  I  make  out  here,  so  far  as  I  catch 
the  tip  of  the  tail  of  it,  such  an  interesting  con 
nection  and  dependence,  for  what  I  may  roughly 
call  Gray's  state  of  mind,  as  to  what  is  taking 
place  within  Cissy,  so  to  speak.  Since  I  speak 
of  the  most  primitive  statement  of  it  possible  he 
catches  the  moment  at  which  she  begins  to  say 
to  herself  "But  if  Horton,  if  he,  is  going  to  be 
rich —  —  ? "  as  a  positive  arrest,  say  significant 
warning  or  omen,  in  his  own  nearer  approach  to 
her;  which  takes  on  thereb}'  a  portentous,  a 
kind  of  ominous  and  yet  enjoyable  air  of  evidence 
as  to  his  own  likelihood,  at  this  rate,  of  getting 
poor.  He  catches  her  not  asking  herself  withal, 
at  least  then,  "How  is  Horton  going  to  be  rich, 
how,  at  such  a  rate,  has  it  come  on,  and  what 
does  it  mean?"— it  is  only  the  "If  Horton,  oh 

315 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

if—  -?"  that  he  comes  up  against;  it's  as  if  he 
comes  up  against,  as  well,  some  wondrous  im 
plication  in  it  of  "If,  if,  if  Mr.  Gray  is,  'in  such 
a  funny  way,'  going  to  be  poor—  He  sees 

her  there,  seeing  at  the  same  time  that  it's  as  near 
as  she  yet  gets;  as  near  perhaps  even — for  this 
splendid  apprehension  sort  of  begins  to  take  place 
in  him — as  she's  going  to  allow  herself  to  get; 
and  after  the  first  chill  of  it,  shock  of  it,  pain  of 
it  (because  I  want  him  to  be  at  the  point  at  which 
he  has  that)  fades  a  little  away  for  him,  he  emerg 
ing  or  shaking  himself  out  of  it,  the  beautiful 
way  in  which  it  falls  into  the  general  ironic  ap 
prehension,  imagination,  appropriation,  of  the 
Whole,  becomes  for  him  the  fact  about  it.  She 
has  them,  each  on  his  side,  there  in  her  balance 
— and  this  is  between  them,  between  him  and 
her;  I  must  have  prepared  everything  right  for 
its  being  oh  such  a  fine  moment.  What  I  want 
to  do  of  course  is  to  get  out  of  this  particular 
situation  all  it  can  give;  what  it  most  gives  being, 
to  the  last  point,  the  dramatic  quality,  intensity, 
force,  current  or  whatever,  of  Gray's  apprehen 
sion  of  it,  once  this  is  determined,  and  of  course 
wondering  interest  in  it — as  a  light,  so  to  speak, 
on  both  of  the  persons  concerned.  What  I  see 
is  that  she  gives  him  the  measure,  as  it  were, 
of  Horton's  successful  proceeding — and  does  so, 
in  a  sort,  without  positively  having  it  herself, 
or  truly  wanting  to  have  it  beyond  the  fact  that 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

it  is  success,  is  promise  and  prospect  of  acquisi 
tion  on  a  big  scale.  What  it  comes  to  is  that 
he  finds  her  believing  in  Horton  just  at  the  time 
and  in  proportion  as  he  has  found  himself  ceasing 
to  believe,  so  far  as  the  latter' s  disinterestedness 
is  concerned.  No  better,  no  more  vivid  illus 
tration  of  the  force  of  the  money-power  and 
money-prestige  rises  there  before  him,  innumerably 
as  other  examples  assault  him  from  all  round. 
The  effect  on  her  is  there  for  him  to  "study," 
even,  if  he  will;  and  in  fact  he  does  study  it, 
studies  it  in  a  way  that  (as  he  also  sees)  makes 
her  think  that  this  closer  consideration  of  her, 
approach  to  her,  as  it  were,  is  the  expression  of 
an  increased  sympathy,  faith  and  good  will, 
increased  desire,  in  fine,  to  make  her  like  him. 
All  the  while  it  is,  for  Gray  himself,  something 
other;  yet  something  at  the  same  time  wellnigh 
as  absorbing  as  if  it  were  what  she  takes  it  for. 
The  fascination  of  seeing  what  will  come  of  it — 
that  is  of  the  situation,  the  state  of  vigilance, 
the  wavering  equilibrium,  at  work,  or  at  play, 
in  the  young  woman — this  "fascination"  very 
"amusing"  to  show,  with  everything  that  clus 
ters  about  it.  He  really  enjoys  getting  so  de 
tached  from  it  as  to  be  able  to  have  it  before  him 
for  observation  and  wonder  as  he  does,  and  I 
must  make  the  point  very  much  of  how  this 
fairly  soothes  and  relieves  him,  begins  to  glimmer 
upon  him  exactly  through  that  consciousness  as 

317 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

something  like  the  sort  of  issue  he  has  been  worry 
ing  about  and  longing  for.  Just  so  something 
that  he  makes  out  as  distinguishable  there  in 
Horton,  a  confidence  more  or  less  dissimulated 
but  also,  deeply  within,  more  or  less  determined, 
operates  in  its  way  as  a  measure  for  him  of  Hor- 
ton's  intimate  sense  of  how  things  will  go  for 
him;  the  confidence  referring,  I  mustn't  omit, 
to  his  possibility  of  Cissy,  after  all,  whom  his 
sentiment  for  makes  his  most  disinterested  in 
terest,  so  to  call  it:  all  this  in  a  manner  corre 
sponding  to  that  apprehension  in  Gray  of  her 
confidence,  which  I  have  just  been  sketchily 
noting.  The  one  disinterested  thing  in  Horton, 
that  is,  consists  of  his  being  so  attached  to  her 
that  he  really  cares  for  her  freedom,  cares  for 
her  doing  what  on  the  whole  she  most  wants  to, 
if  it  will  but  come  as  she  wants  it,  by  the  opera 
tion,  the  evolution,  so  to  say,  of  her  clear  prefer 
ence.  He  has  somehow  within  him  a  sense  that 
anyway,  whatever  happens,  they  shall  not  fail 
of  being  "friends"  after  all.  I  see  myself  want 
ing  to  have  Gray  come  up  against  some  con 
clusive  sign  of  how  things  are  at  last  between 
them — though  I  say  "at  last"  as  if  he  has  had 
much  other  light  as  to  how  such  things  have  been, 
precedently.  I  don't  want  him  to  have  had 
much  other  light,  though  he  needs  of  course  to 
have  had  some\  there  being  people  enough  to 
tell  him,  he  being  so  in  the  circle  of  talk,  reference, 

318 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

gossip;  but  with  his  own  estimate  of  the  truth 
of  ever  so  much  of  the  chatter  in  general,  and 
of  that  chatter  in  particular,  taking  its  course. 
What  I  seem  to  see  just  in  this  connection  is 
that  he  has  "believed"  so  far  as  to  take  it  that 
she  has  "cared"  for  his  friend  in  the  previous 
time,  but  that  Horton  hasn't  really  at  all  cared 
for  her,  keeping  himself  in  reserve  as  it  is  of  his 
essence  to  do,  and  in  particular  (this  absolutely 
known  to  Gray)  never  having  wholly  given  up 
his  views  on  Rosanna.  Gray  believes  that  he 
hasn't,  at  any  rate,  and  this  helps  him  not  to  fit 
the  fact  of  the  younger  girl's  renounced,  quenched, 
outlived,  passion,  or  whatever  one  may  call  it, 
to  any  game  of  patience  or  calculation,  rooted 
in  a  like  state  of  feeling,  on  Horton's  part.  I 
want  the  full  effect  of  what  I  can  only  call  for 
convenience  Gray's  Discovery,  his  full  discovery 
of  them  "together",  in  some  situation,  and  its 
illuminating  and  signifying,  its  in  a  high  degree, 
to  repeat  again  my  cherished  word,  determinant 
character.  This  effect  requires  exactly  what  I 
have  been  roughly  marking — the  line  of  argu 
ment  in  which  appearances,  as  interpreted  for 
himself,  have  been  supporting  Gray.  "She  has 
been  in  love  with  him,  yes — but  nothing  has  come 
of  it — nothing  could  come  of  it;  because,  though 
he  has  been  aware,  and  has  been  nice  and  kind 
to  her,  he  isn't  affected  in  the  same  way — is, 
in  these  matters,  too  cool  and  calculating  a  bird. 

319 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

He  likes  women,  yes;  and  has  had  lots  to  do  with 
them;  but  in  the  way  of  what  a  real  relation  with 
her  would  have  meant — not !  She  has  given  him 
up,  she  has  given  it  up — whereby  one  is  free  not 
to  worry,  not  to  have  scruples,  not  to  fear  to  cut 
across  the  possibility  of  one's  friend."  That's 
a  little  compendium  of  what  I  see.  But  it  comes 
to  me  that  I  also  want  something  more — for  the 
full  effect  and  the  exact  particular  and  most 
pointed  bearing  of  what  I  dub  Gray's  discovery. 
He  must  have  put  it  to  Horton,  as  their  relations 
have  permitted  at  some  suggested  hour,  or  in 
some  relevant  connection:  "Do  you  mind  telling 
me  if  it's  true — what  I've  heard  a  good  deal  af 
firmed — that  there  has  been  a  question  of  an 
engagement  between  you  and  Miss  Foy? — or 
that  you  are  so  interested  in  her  that  to  see  some 
body  else  making  up  to  her  would  be  to  you  as 
a  pang,  an  affront,  a  ground  of  contention  or 
challenge  or  whatever?"  I  seem  to  see  that, 
very  much  indeed;  and  by  the  same  token  to 
see  Horton's  straight  denegation.  I  see  Horton 
say  emphatically  No — and  this  for  reasons  quite 
conceivable  in  him,  once  one  apprehends  their 
connection  with  his  wishing  above  all,  beyond 
anything  else  that  he  at  this  moment  wishes,  to 
keep  well  with  Gray.  His  denegation  is  plausible; 
Gray  believes  it  and  accepts  it — all  the  more 
that  at  the  moment  in  question  he  wants  to,  in 
the  interest  of  his  own  freedom  of  action.  Ac- 

320 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

cordingly  the  point  I  make  is  that  when  he  in 
particular  conditions  finds  them  all  unexpectedly 
and  unmistakably  "together",  the  discovery  be 
comes  for  him  doubly  illuminating.  I  might  even 
better  say  trebly;  showing  him  in  the  very  first 
place  that  Horton  has  lied  to  him,  and  thereby 
that  Horton  can  lie.  This  very  interesting  and 
important — but  also,  in  a  strange  way,  "fascinat 
ing"  to  him.  It  shows  in  the  second  way  how 
much  Cissy  is  "thinking"  of  Horton,  as  well  as 
he  of  her;  and  it  shows  in  the  last  place,  which 
makes  it  triple,  how  well  Horton  must  think  of 
the  way  his  affairs  are  getting  on  that  he  can 
now  consider  the  possibility  of  a  marriage — that 
he  can  feel,  I  mean,  he  can  afford  to  marry;  not 
having  need  of  one  of  the  Rosannas  to  make  up 
for  his  own  destitution.  This  clinches  enormously, 
as  by  a  flash  of  vision,  Gray's  perception  of  what 
he  is  about;  and  is  thus  very  intensely  a  Joint 
of  the  first  water !  What  I  want  to  be  carried 
on  to  is  the  point  at  which  all  that  he  sees  and 
feels  and  puts  together  in  this  connection  eventu 
ates  in  a  decision  or  attitude,  in  a  clearing-up  of 
all  the  troubled  questions,  obscurities  and  diffi 
culties  that  have  hung  for  him  about  what  I 
call  his  Solution,  about  what  he  shall  be  most 
at  ease,  most  clear  and  consistent  for  himself,  in 
making  up  his  mind  to.  The  process  here  and 
the  position  on  his  part,  with  all  the  implications 
and  consequences  of  the  same  in  which  it  results, 

321 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

is  difficult  and  delicate  to  formulate,  but  I  see 
with  the  last  intensity  the  sense  of  it,  and  feel 
how  it  will  all  come  and  come  as  I  get  nearer  to 
it.  What  is  a  big  and  beautiful  challenge  to  a 
whole  fine  handling  of  these  connections  in  partic 
ular  is  the  making  conceivable  and  clear,  or  in 
other  words  credible,  consistent,  vivid  and  in 
teresting,  the  particular  extraordinary  relation 
thus  constituted  between  the  two  men.  That 
one  may  make  it  these  things  for  Gray  is  more 
or  less  calculable,  and,  as  I  seem  to  make  out, 
workable;  but  the  greatest  beauty  of  the  dif 
ficulty  is  in  getting  it  and  keeping  it  in  the  right 
note  and  at  the  right  pitch  for  Horton.  Horton's 
"acceptance" — on  what  prodigious  basis  save 
the  straight  and  practical  view  of  Gray's  exalted 
queerness  and  constitutional,  or  whatever,  per 
versity,  can  that  be  shown  as  resting?  Two  fine 
things — that  is  one  of  them  strikes  me  as  very 
fine — here  come  to  me;  one  of  these  my  seeing 
(don't  I  see  it  ?)  how  it  will  fall  in,  not  to  say  fall 
out,  as  of  the  essence  of  the  true  workability,  that 
the  extent  to  which  i's  are  not  dotted  between 
them,  are  left  consciously  undotted,  to  which, 
to  the  most  extraordinary  tune,  and  yet  with  the 
logic  of  it  all  straight,  they  stand  off,  or  rather 
Gray  does,  the  other  all  demonstrably  thus  taking 
his  cue — the  way,  I  say,  in  which  the  standing- 
off  from  sharp  or  supreme  clearances  is,  and  con 
firms  itself  as  being,  a  note  of  my  hero's  action 

322 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

in  the  matter,  throws  upon  one  the  most  in 
teresting  work.  Horton  accepts  it  as  exactly 
part  of  the  prodigious  queerness  which  he  humours 
and  humours  in  proportion  as  Gray  will  have  it 
that  he  shall;  the  "fine  thing",  the  second  of 
the  two,  just  spoken  of,  being  that  Horton  never 
flinches  from  his  perfectly  splendid  theory  that 
he  is  "taking  care",  consummately,  of  his  friend, 
and  that  he  is  arranging,  by  my  exhibition  of 
him,  just  as  consummately  to  show  for  so  doing. 
No  end,  I  think,  to  be  got  out  of  this  wondrous 
fact  of  Gray's  sparing  Horton,  or  saving  him,  the 
putting  of  anything  to  a  real  and  direct  Test; 
such  a  Test  as  would  reside  in  his  asking  straight 
for  a  large  sum  of  money,  a  big  amount,  really 
consonant  with  his  theoretically  intact  resources 
arid  such  as  he  with  the  highest  propriety  in  the 
world  might  simply  say  that  he  has  an  imme 
diate  use  for,  or  can  make  some  important  ap 
plication  of.  No  end,  no  end,  as  I  say,  to  what 
I  see  as  given  me  by  this — this  huge  constituted 
and  accepted  eccentricity  of  Gray's  holdings-ofF. 
I  have  the  image  of  the  relation  between  them 
made  by  it  in  my  vision  thus  of  the  way,  or  the 
ways,  they  look  at  each  other  even  while  talking 
together  to  a  tune  which  would  logically  or  con 
sistently  make  these  ways  other;  the  sort  of  edu 
cation  of  the  look  that  it  breeds  in  Horton  on 
the  whole  ground  of  "how  far  he  may  go."  The 
things  that  pass  between  them  after  this  fashion 

323 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

quite  beautiful  to  do  if  kept  from  an  overdoing; 
with  Horton's  formula  of  his  " looking  after" 
Gray  completely  interwoven  with  his  whole 
ostensibility.  It  is  with  this  formula  that  Hor- 
ton  meets  the  world  all  the  while — the  world 
that  at  a  given  moment  can  only  find  itself  so 
full  of  wonderment  and  comment.  It  is  with  it 
above  all  that  he  meets  Cissy,  who  takes  it  from 
him  in  a  way  that  absolutely  helps  him  to  keep 
it  up;  and  it  would  be  with  it  that  he  should 
meet  Rosanna  if,  after  a  given  day  or  season,  he 
might  find  it  in  him  to  dare,  as  it  were,  to  "meet" 
Rosanna  at  all.  It  is  with  Horton's  formula, 
which  I  think  I  finally  show  him  as  quite  publicly 
delighting  in,  that  Gray  himself  meets  Rosanna, 
whom  he  meets  a  great  deal  all  this  time;  with 
such  passages  between  them  as  are  only  matched 
in  another  sense,  and  with  all  the  other  values 
with  which  they  swell,  so  to  speak,  by  his  pas 
sages  with  the  consummate  Horton.  Charming, 
by  which  I  mean  such  interesting,  things  resident 
in  what  I  there  touch  on;  with  the  way  they  look 
at  each  other,  Rosanna  and  Gray,  if  one  is  talk 
ing  about  looks.  Gray  keeps  it  in  comedy,  so 
far  as  he  can — making  a  tone,  a  spell,  that  Ro 
sanna  doesn't  break  into,  as  she  breaks,  anything 
to  call  really  breaks,  into  nothing  as  yet:  I  seem 
to  see  the  final,  from-far-back-prepared  moment 
when  she  does,  for  the  first  and  last  time,  break 
as  of  a  big  and  beautiful  value.  That  will  be  a 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

Joint  of  Joints;  but  meanwhile  what  is  between 
them  is  the  sombre  confidence,  tenderness,  fas 
cination,  anxiety,  a  dozen  admirable  things,  with 
which  she  waits  on  Gray's  tone,  not  playing  up 
to  it  at  all  (playings-up  and  suchlike  not  being 
verily  in  her)  but  taking  it  from  him,  accom 
modating  herself  to  it  with  all  her  anxiety  and 
her  confidence  somehow  mixed  together,  as  if  to 
see  how  far  it  will  carry  her.  Such  a  lot  to  be 
done  with  Gussie  Bradham,  portentous  woman, 
even  to  the  very  cracking  or  bursting  of  the  mould 
meanwhile — so  functional  do  I  see  her,  in  spite 
of  the  crowding  and  pressing  together  of  func 
tions,  as  to  the  production  of  those  (after  all 
early-determined)  reactions  in  Gray  by  the  simple 
complete  exhibition  of  her  type  and  pressure 
and  aggressive  mass.  She  is  really  worth  a  book 
by  herself,  or  would  be  should  I  look  that  way; 
and  I  just  here  squeeze  what  I  most  want  about 
her  into  a  sort  of  nutshell  by  saying  that  it  marks 
for  Gray  just  where  and  how  his  Solution,  or  at 
any  rate  some  of  its  significant  and  attendant 
aspects,  swims  into  his  ken,  with  the  very  first 
scene  she  makes  him  about  the  meanness  then 
of  his  conception  of  his  opportunity.  Then  it  is 
he  feels  he  must  be  getting  a  bit  into  the  truth  of 
things — if  that's  the  way  he  strikes  her.  His 
very  measure  of  taste  and  delicacy  and  the  sym 
pathetic  and  the  nice  and  the  what  he  wants, 
becomes  after  a  fashion  what  she  will  want  most 

325 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

to  make  him  a  scene  about.  I  have  it  at  first 
that  he  lends  himself,  that  her  great  driving  tone 
and  pressure,  her  would-be  act  of  possession  of 
him,  Cissy  and  the  question  of  Cissy  being  the 
link,  have  amounted  to  a  sort  of  trouble-saving 
thing  which  he  has  let  himself  "go  to",  which  he 
has  suffered  as  his  convenient  push  or  handy 
determinant,  for  the  hour  (sceptical  even  then 
as  to  its  lasting) — but  which  has  inordinately 
overdosed  him,  overhustled  him,  almost,  as  he 
feels  in  his  old  habit  of  financial  contraction, 
overspent  and  overruined  him.  He  does  the 
things,  the  social  things,  for  the  moment,  that 
she  prescribes,  that  she  foists  upon  him  as  the 
least  ones  he  can  decently  do;  does  them  even 
with  a  certain  bewildered  amusement — while 
Rosanna,  brooding  apart,  so  to  speak,  out  of 
the  circle  and  on  her  own  ground,  but  ever  so 
attentive,  draws  his  eye  to  the  effect  of  what 
one  might  almost  call  the  intelligent,  the  patience- 
inviting,  wink !  Oh  for  the  pity  of  scant  space 
for  specific  illustration  of  Mrs.  Bradham;  where 
with  indeed  of  course  I  reflect  on  the  degree  to 
which  my  planned  compactness,  absolutely  pre 
cious  and  not  to  be  compromised  with,  must 
restrict  altogether  the  larger  illustrational  play. 
Intensities  of  foreshortening,  with  alternate  vivid 
nesses  of  extension:  that  is  the  rough  label  of 
the  process.  I  keep  it  before  me  how  mixed 
Cissy  is  with  certain  of  the  consequences  of  this 

326 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

hustlement  of  Mrs.  Bradham,  and  how  bully- 
ingly,  so  to  call  it  almost,  she  has  put  the  whole 
matter  of  what  he  ought  to  "do  for  them  all," 
on  the  ground  in  particular  of  what  it  is  so  open 
to  him,  so  indicated  for  him,  to  do  for  that  poor 
dear  exquisite  thing  in  especial.  Illustrational, 
illustrational,  yes;  but  oh  how  every  inch  of  it 
will  have  to  count.  I  seem  to  want  her  to  have 
made  him  do  some  one  rather  gross  big  thing 
above  all,  as  against  his  own  sense  of  fineness  in 
these  matters;  and  to  have  this  thing  count 
somehow  very  much  in  the  matter  of  his  relation 
with  Cissy.  I  seem  to  want  something  like  his 
having  consented  to  be  "put  up"  by  her  to  the 
idea  of  offering  Cissy  something  very  handsome 
by  way  of  a  "kind  "  tribute  to  her  mingled  poverty 
and  charm — jolly,  jolly,  I  think  I've  exactly  got 
it !  I  keep  in  mind  that  Mrs.  Bradham  wants 
him  to  marry  her — this  amount  of  "disinterested 
ness"  giving  the  measure  of  Mrs.  B.  at  her  most 
exalted  "best".  Wherewith,  to  consolidate  this, 
her  delicacy  being  capable — well,  of  what  we  shall 
see,  she  works  of  course  to  exaggeration  the  idea 
of  his  "recognising"  how  nice  Cissy  was,  over 
there  in  the  other  time,  to  his  poor  sick  stepfather, 
who  himself  so  recognised  it,  who  wrote  to  her 
so  charmingly  a  couple  of  times  "about  it", 
after  her  return  to  America  and  quite  shortly 
before  his  death.  Gray  "knows  about  this", 
and  of  course  will  quite  see  what  she  means. 

327 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

Therefore  wouldn't  it  be  nice  for  Gray  to  give 
her,  Cissy,  something  really  beautiful  and  val 
uable  and  socially  helpful  to  her — as  of  course 
he  can't  give  her  money,  which  is  what  would 
be  most  helpful.  Under  this  hustlement,  in  fine, 
and  with  a  sense,  born  of  his  goodnature,  his 
imagination,  and  his  own  delicacy,  such  a  very 
different  affair,  of  what  Gussie  Bradham  has 
done  for  him,  by  her  showing,  he  finds  himself 
in  for  having  bought  a  very  rare  single  row  of 
pearls,  such  as  a  girl,  in  New  York  at  least,  may 
happily  wear,  and  presenting  it  to  our  young 
person  as  the  token  of  recognition  that  Mrs. 
Bradham  has  imagined  for  them.  The  beauty 
in  which,  I  see,  is  that  it  may  be  illustrational 
in  more  ways  than  one — illustrational  of  the 
hustle,  of  the  length  Gray  has  "appreciatively" 
let  himself  go,  and,  above  all,  of  Cissy's  really 
interesting  intelligence  and  "subtlety".  She 
refuses  the  gift,  very  gently  and  pleadingly,  but 
as  it  seems  to  him  really  pretty  well  finally — 
refuses  it  as  not  relevant  or  proportionate  or 
congruous  to  any  relation  in  which  they  yet 
stand  to  each  other,  and  as  oh  ever  so  much  over- 
expressing  any  niceness  she  may  have  shown  in 
Europe.  She  does,  in  doing  this,  exactly  what 
he  has  felt  at  the  back  of  his  head  that  she  would 
really  do,  and  what  he  likes  her  for  doing — the 
effect  of  which  is  that  she  has  furthered  her  in 
terest  with  him  decidedly  more  (as  she  of  course 

328 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

says  to  herself)  than  if  she  had  taken  it.  He  is 
left  with  it  for  the  moment  on  his  hands,  and 
what  I  want  is  that  he  shall  the  next  thing  find 
himself,  in  revulsion,  in  reaction,  there  being 
for  him  no  question  of  selling  it  again  etc.,  finds 
himself,  I  say,  offering  it  to  Mrs.  Bradham  her 
self,  who  swallows  it  without  winking.  Yet,  in 
a  way,  this  little  history  of  the  pearls,  of  her  not 
having  had  them,  and  of  his  after  a  fashion  owing 
her  a  certain  compensation  for  that,  owing  her 
something  she  can  accept,  is  there  between  him 
and  my  young  person.  They  figure  again  be 
tween  them,  humorously,  freely,  ironically — the 
girl  being  of  an  irony ! — in  their  appearances  on 
Mrs.  Bradham's  person,  to  whose  huge  possession 
of  ornament  they  none  the  less  conspicuously 
add. 

But  my  point  here  is  above  all  that  Gray  ex 
actly  doesn't  put  the  question  of  what  is  becom 
ing  of  his  funds  under  Horty's  care  of  them  to 
the  test  by  any  cultivation  of  that  courage  for 
large  drafts  and  big  hauls,  that  nerve  for  be 
lieving  in  the  fairy-tale  of  his  sudden  fact  of  pos 
session,  which  was  briefly  and  in  a  manner  amus 
ingly  possible  to  him  at  the  first  go  off  of  his 
situation.  He  forbears,  abstains,  stands  off,  and 
finds  himself,  or  in  particular  is  found  by  others, 
to  the  extent  of  their  observing,  wondering  and 
presently  challenging  him,  to  be  living,  to  be 
drawing  on  his  supposed  income,  with  what  might 

329 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

pass  for  the  most  extraordinarily  timorous  and 
limited  imagination.  He  likes  this  arrest,  en 
joys  it  and  feels  a  sort  of  wondrous  refreshing 
decency,  at  any  rate  above  all  a  refreshing  in 
terest  and  curiosity  about  it,  or,  rather,  for  it; 
but  what  his  position  involves  is  his  explaining 
it  to  others,  his  making  up  his  mind,  his  having 
to,  for  a  line  to  take  about  it,  without  his  thereby 
giving  Horton  away.  He  isn't  to  give  Horton 
away  the  least  scrap  from  this  point  on;  but  at 
the  same  time  he  is  to  have  to  deal  with  the  world, 
with  society,  with  the  entourage  consisting  for 
him,  in  its  most  pressing  form,  of,  say,  three 
representative  persons — he  has  to  deal  with  this 
challenge,  as  I  have  called  it,  in  some  way  that 
will  sort  of  meet  it  without  givings-away.  These 
three  persons  are  in  especial  Rosanna  and  the 
two  Bradhams;  and  it  is  before  me  definitely,  I 
think,  that  I  want  to  express,  and  in  the  very 
vividest  way,  his  sense  of  his  situation  here,  of 
what  it  means,  and  of  what  he  means,  in  it,  through 
what  takes  place  for  him  about  it  with  Rosanna 
and  with  the  Bradhams.  It  is  by  what  he  "says" 
to  the  Bradhams  and  to  Rosanna  (in  the  way, 
that  is  largely,  of  not  saying)  that  I  seem  to  see 
my  values  here  as  best  got,  and  the  presentation 
of  their  different  states  most  vivified  and  drama 
tised.  These  are  scenes,  and  the  function  of  them 
to  serve  up  for  us  exactly,  and  ever  so  lucidly, 
what  I  desire  them  to  represent.  If  the  greatest 

330 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

interest  of  them,  of  sorts,  belongs  to  them  in  so 
far  as  they  are  "with"  Rosanna,  there  are  yet 
particular  values  that  belong  to  the  relation  with 
Davey,  and  the  three  relations,  at  any  rate,  work 
the  thing  for  me.     They  are  perfectly  different, 
on  this   lively  ground,  though   the   "  point "   in 
volved  is  the  same  in  each;    and  the  having  each 
of  them  to  do  it  with  should  enable  me  to  do  it 
beautifully;    I  mean  to  squeeze  all  the  dramatic 
sense  from  it.     The  great  beauty  is  of  course  for 
the  aspects  with   Rosanna,   between  whom  and 
him   everything   passes — and    there   is   so   much 
basis  already  in  what  has  been  between  them — 
without   his   "explaining",   as   I   have   called   it, 
anything.      Even    without    explanations — or    all 
the  more  by  reason  of  their  very  absence — there 
is  so  much  of  it  all;   of  the  question  and  the  dra 
matic    illumination.      With    Gussie    Bradham — 
that  aspect  I  needn't  linger  or  insist  on,  here,  so 
much  as  a  scrap.    I  have  that,  see  it  all,  it's  there. 
But  with   Davey   I  want  something  very  good, 
that  is  in   other  words  very  functional;    and   I 
think  I  even  wonder  if  I  don't  want  to  see  Davey 
as  attempting  to  borrow  money  of  him.    This — 
if  I  do  see  it — will  take  much  putting  on  the  right 
basis;    and  it  seems  to  kind  of  glimmer  upon  me 
richly  what  the  right  basis  is.    My  idea  has  been 
from  the  first  that  the  Bradham  money  is   all 
Gussie's;    I  have  seen  Davey,  by  the  very  type 
and  aspect,  by  all  his  detached  irony  and  humour 

331 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

and  indiscretion  and  general  value  as  the  un- 
monied  young  man  who  has  married  the  heiress, 
as  Horton  would  have  been  had  he  been  able 
to  marry  Rosanna.  But  no  interfering  analogy 
need  trouble  me  here;  Horton's  riot  having  done 
that,  and  the  essential  difference  between  the 
men,  eases  off  any  such  question.  Only  don't  I 
seem  to  want  it  that  Gussie's  fortune,  besides 
not  having  been  even  remotely  comparable  to 
Rosanna's,  is,  though  with  a  fair  outward  face, 
a  dilapidated  and  undermined  quantity,  much 
ravaged  by  Gussie's  violent  strain  upon  it,  and 
representing  thus,  through  her  general  enormous 
habit  and  attitude,  an  association  and  connec 
tion  with  the  money  world,  but  all  the  more 
characteristically  so,  for  Gray  as  he  begins  to  see, 
that  almost  everything  but  the  pitch  of  Gussie's 
wants  and  arrangements  and  ideals  has  been 
chucked,  as  it  were,  out  of  its  windows  and  doors. 
Don't  I  really  see  the  Bradhams  thus  as  preda 
tory  ?  Predatory  on  the  very  rich,  that  is;  with 
Gussie's  insistence  that  Gray  shall  be  and  shall 
proceed  as  quite  one  of  the  very,  oh  the  very, 
very,  exactly  in  order  that  she  may  so  prey  ? 
Yes  and  so  it  is  that  Gray  learns — so  it  is  that  a 
part  of  Davey's  abysses  of  New  York  financial 
history,  is  his  own,  their  own,  but  his  in  partic 
ular,  abyss  of  inconvenience,  abyss  of  inability 
to  keep  it  up  combined  with  all  the  social  impos 
sibility  of  not  doing  so.  I  somehow  want  such 

332 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

values  of  the  supporting  and  functional  and  illus 
trative  sort  in  Davey  that  I  really  think  I  kind 
of  want  him  to  be  the  person,  the  person,  to  whom 
Gray  gives — as  a  kind  of  recognition  of  the  re 
markable  part,  the  precious  part,  don't  I  feel  it 
as  being  ?  that  Davey  plays  for  him.  He  likes 
so  the  illuminating  Davey,  whom  I'm  quite  sure 
I  want  to  show  in  no  malignant  or  vicious  light, 
but  just  as  a  regular  rag  or  sponge  of  saturation 
in  the  surrounding  medium.  He  is  beyond,  he 
is  outside  of,  all  moral  judgments,  all  scandalised 
states;  he  is  amused  at  what  he  himself  does, 
at  his  general  and  particular  effect  and  effects 
on  Gray,  who  is  his  luxury  of  a  relation,  as  it 
were,  and  whom  I  somehow  seem  to  want  to  show 
him  feel  as  the  only  person  in  the  whole  medium 
appreciating  his  genius;  in  other  words  his  de 
tached  play  of  mind  and  the  deep  "American 
humour"  of  it.  Don't  I  seem  to  want  him  even 
as  asking  for  something  rather  big  ? — a  kind  of 
a  lump  of  a  sum  which  Gray,  always  with  amuse 
ment,  answers  that  he  will  have  to  see  about. 
Gray's  seeing  about  anything  of  this  sort  means, 
all  notedly,  absolutely  all,  as  I  think  I  have  it, 
asking  Horton  whether  he  can,  whether  he  may, 
whether  Horton  will  give  it  to  him,  whether  in 
short  the  thing  will  suit  Horton;  even  without 
any  disposition  of  the  sum,  any  account  of  what 
he  wants  to  do,  indicated  or  reported  or  confessed 
to  Horton  ?  Don't  I  see  something  like  this  ?— 

333 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

that  Gray,  having  put  it  to  Horton,  has  precisely 
determined,  for  his  vision,  on  Horton's  part,  just 
that  first  important  plea  of  "Really  you  can't, 
you  know,  at  this  rate" — even  after  Gray  has 
been  for  some  time  so  "  ascetic'*-  -"It  won't  be 
convenient  for  you  just  now;  and  I  must  ask 
you  really,  you  know,  to  take  my  word  for  it 
that  you'd  much  better  not  distract  from  what 
I  am  in  the  act  of  doing  for  you  such  a  sum" — by 
which  I  mean,  for  I  am  probably  using  here  not 
the  terms  Horton  would  use — "much  better  not 
make  such  a  call  (call  is  the  word)  when  I  am  ex 
actly  doing  for  you  etc."  What  I  seem  to  see  is 
that  Davey  does  have  money  from  him,  but  has 
it  only  on  a  scale  that  falls  short,  considerably, 
of  his  appeal  or  proposal  or  whatever;  in  other 
words  that  Gray  accommodates  him  to  the  third, 
or  some  other  fraction,  of  the  whole  extent;  and 
that  this  involves  for  him  practically  the  need 
of  his  saying  that  Horton  won't  let  him  have 
more.  I  want  that,  I  see  it  as  a  value;  I  see 
Davey's  aspect  on  it  as  a  value,  I  see  what  is  de 
termined  thus  between  them  as  a  value;  and  I 
seem  to  see  most  this  covering  by  Gray  of  Horton 
in  answer  to  the  insinuations,  not  indignant  but 
amused,  in  answer  to  the  humorously  fantastic 
picture,  on  Davey 's  lips,  of  the  rate  at  which 
Horton  is  cleaning  him  out  or  whatever,  this 
taking  of  the  line  of  so  doing  and  of  piling  up 
plausibilities  of  defence,  excuse  etc.,  so  far  as 

334 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

poor  Gray  can  be  plausible  in  these  difficult 
" technical"  connections,  as  the  vivid  image,  the 
vividest,  I  am  most  concerned  to  give  of  what  I 
show  him  as  doing.  The  covering  of  Horton,  the 
covering  of  Horton — this  is  much  more  than  not 
giving  him  away;  this  active  and  positive  pro 
tection  of  him  seems  to  me  really  what  my  sub 
ject  logically  asks.  Well  then  if  that  is  it,  is  what 
it  most  of  all,  for  the  dramatic  value,  asks,  how 
can  this  be  consistently  less  than  Gray's  act  of 
going  all  the  way  indeed  ?  I  don't  know  why— 
as  it  has  been  hovering  before  me — I  don't  want 
the  complete  vivid  sense  of  it  to  take  the  form 
of  an  awful,  a  horrible  or  hideous,  crisis  on  Hor- 
ton's  part  which,  under  the  stress  of  it,  he  "sud 
denly"  discloses  to  Gray,  throwing  himself  upon 
him  in  the  most  fevered,  the  most  desperate  ap 
peal  for  relief.  What  then  constitutes  the  nature 
of  the  crisis,  what  then  can,  or  constitute  the 
urgency  of  the  relief,  unless  the  fact  of  his  hav 
ing  something  altogether  dreadful  to  confess;  so 
dreadful  that  it  can  only  involve  the  very  essence 
of  his  reputation,  honour  and  decency,  his  safety 
in  short  before  the  law  ?  He  has  been  guilty  of 
some  huge  irregularity,  say — but  which  yet  is  a 
different  thing  from  whatever  irregularities  he 
has  been  guilty  of  in  respect  to  Gray  himself;  and 
which  up  to  now,  at  the  worst,  have  left  a  certain 
substantial  part  of  Gray's  funds  intact.  Say 
that,  say  that;  turn  it  over,  that  is,  to  see  if  it's 

335 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

really  wanted.  I  think  of  it  as  wanted  because 
I  feel  the  need  of  the  effect  of  some  acute  deter 
mination  play  up  as  I  consider  all  this — and  yet 
also  see  objections;  which  probably  will  multiply 
as  I  look  a  little  closer.  I  throw  this  off,  at  all 
events,  for  the  moment,  as  I  go,  to  be  looked  at 
straighter,  to  return  to  presently — after  I've  got 
away  from  it  a  bit,  I  mean  from  this  special  aspect 
a  little,  in  order  to  come  back  to  it  fresher;  pick 
ing  up  meanwhile  two  or  three  different  matters. 
The  whole  question  of  what  my  young  man 
has  been  positively  interested  in,  been  all  the 
while  more  or  less  definitely  occupied  with,  I 
have  found  myself  leaving,  or  at  any  rate  have 
left,  in  abeyance,  by  reason  of  a  certain  sense  of 
its  comparative  unimportance.  That  is  I  have 
felt  my  instinct  to  make  him  definitely  and  frankly 
as  complete  a  case  as  possible  of  the  sort  of  thing 
that  will  make  him  an  anomaly  and  an  outsider 
alike  in  the  New  York  world  of  business,  the  N. 
Y.  world  of  ferocious  acquisition,  and  the  world 
there  of  enormities  of  expenditure  and  extrav 
agance,  so  that  the  real  suppression  for  him  of 
anything  that  shall  count  in  the  American  air 
as  a  money-making,  or  even  as  a  wage-earning, 
or  as  a  pecuniarily  picking-up  character,  strikes 
me  as  wanted  for  my  emphasis  of  his  entire  dif 
ference  of  sensibility  and  of  association.  I  have 
always  wanted  to  do  an  out  and  out  non-producer, 
in  the  ordinary  sense  of  non-accumulator  of  ma- 

336 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

terial  gain,  from  the  moment  one  should  be  able 
to  give  him  a  positively  interested  aspect  on  an 
other  side  or  in  another  sense,  or  even  definitely 
a  generally  responsive  intelligence.  I  see  my 
figure  then  in  this  case  as  an  absolutely  frank 
example  of  the  tradition  and  superstition,  the 
habit  and  rule  so  inveterate  there,  frankly  and 
serenely  deviated  from — these  things  meaning 
there  essentially  some  mode  of  sharp  reaching 
out  for  money  over  a  counter  or  sucking  it  up 
through  a  thousand  contorted  channels.  Yet  I 
want  something  as  different  as  possible,  no  less 
different,  I  mean,  from  the  people  who  are  "idle" 
there  than  from  the  people  who  are  what  is  called 
active;  in  short,  as  I  say,  an  out  and  out  case, 
and  of  course  an  avowedly,  an  exceptionally  fine 
and  special  one,  which  antecedents  and  past 
history  up  to  then  may  more  or  less  vividly  help 
to  account  for.  A  very  special  case  indeed  is 
of  course  our  Young  Man — without  his  being 
which  my  donnee  wouldn't  come  off*  at  all;  his 
being  so  is  just  of  the  very  core  of  the  subject. 
It's  a  question  therefore  of  the  way  to  make  him 
most  special — but  I  so  distinctly  see  this  that  I 

need  scarce  here  waste  words !     There  are 

three  or  four  definite  facts  and  considerations, 
however;  conditions  to  be  seen  clear.  I  want 
to  steer  clear  of  the  tiresome  "artistic"  associa 
tions  hanging  about  the  usual  type  of  young 
Anglo-Saxon  "brought  up  abroad";  though  only 

337 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

indeed  so  far  as  they  are  tiresome.  My  idea  in 
volves  absolutely  Gray's  taking  his  stand,  a  bit 
ruefully  at  first,  but  quite  boldly  when  he  more 
and  more  sees  what  the  opposite  of  it  over  there 
is  so  much  an  implication  of,  on  the  acknowledg 
ment  that,  no,  absolutely,  he  hasn't  anything  at 
all  to  show  in  the  way  of  work  achieved — with 
such  work  as  he  has  seen  achieved,  whether  apolo 
getically  or  pretentiously,  as  he  has  lived  about; 
and  yet  has  up  to  now  not  had  at  all  the  sense 
of  a  vacuous  consciousness  or  a  so-called  wasted 
life.  This  however  by  reason  of  course  of  cer 
tain  things,  certain  ideas,  possibilities,  inclina 
tions  and  dispositions,  that  he  has  cared  about 
and  felt,  in  his  way,  the  fermentation  of.  Of 
course  the  trouble  with  him  is  a  sort  of  excess 
of  "culture",  so  far  as  the  form  taken  by  his 
existence  up  to  then  has  represented  the  growth 
of  that  article.  Again,  however,  I  see  that  I 
really  am  in  complete  possession  of  him,  and  that 
no  plotting  of  it  as  to  any  but  one  or  two  ma 
terial  particulars  need  here  detain  me.  He  isn't, 
N.B.,  big,  personally,  by  which  I  mean  physically; 
I  see  that  I  want  him  rather  below  than  above 
the  middling  stature,  and  light  and  nervous  and 
restless;  extremely  restless  above  all  in  presence 
of  swarming  new  and  more  or  less  aggressive,  in 
fact  quite  assaulting  phenomena.  Of  course  he 
has  had  some  means — that  he  and  his  stepfather 
were  able  to  live  in  a  quiet  "European"  way 

338 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

and  on  an  income  of  an  extreme  New  York  de- 
plorability,  is  of  course  of  the  basis  of  what  has 
been  before;  with  which  he  must  have  come  in 
for  whatever  his  late  companion  has  had  to  leave. 
So  with  what  there  was  from  his  mother,  very 
modest,  and  what  there  is  from  this  other  source, 
not  less  so,  he  can,  he  could,  go  back  to  Europe 
on  a  sufficient  basis:  this  fact  to  be  kept  in  mind 
both  as  mitigating  the  prodigy  of  his  climax  in 
N.Y.,  and  yet  at  the  same  time  as  making  what 
ever  there  is  of  "appeal"  to  him  over  there  con 
ceivable  enough.  Note  that  the  statement  he 
makes,  when  we  first  know  him,  to  his  dying 
uncle,  the  completeness  of  the  picture  of  detach 
ment  then  and  there  drawn  for  him,  and  which, 
precisely,  by  such  an  extraordinary  and  interest 
ing  turn,  is  what  most  "refreshes"  and  works 
upon  Mr.  Betterman — note,  I  say,  that  I  ab 
solutely  require  the  utterness  of  his  difference 
to  be  a  sort  of  virtual  determinant  in  this  rela 
tion.  He  puts  it  so  to  Rosanna,  tells  her  how 
extraordinarily  he  feels  that  this  is  what  it  has 
been.  Heaven  forbid  he  should  "paint" — but 
there  glimmers  before  me  the  sense  of  the  con 
nection  in  which  I  can  see  him  as  more  or  less 
covertly  and  waitingly,  fastidiously  and  often 
too  sceptically,  conscious  of  possibilities  of  "writ 
ing".  Quite  frankly  accept  for  him  the  complica 
tion  or  whatever  of  his  fastidiousness,  yet  of  his 
recognition  withal  of  what  makes  for  sterility; 

339 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

but  again  and  again  I  have  all  this,  I  have  it. 
His  "culture",  his  initiations  of  intelligence  and 
experience,  his  possibilities  of  imagination,  if  one 
will,  to  say  nothing  of  other  things,  make  for  me 
a  sort  of  figure  of  a  floating  island  on  which  he 
drifts  and  bumps  and  coasts  about,  wanting  to 
get  alongside  as  much  as  possible,  yet  always 
with  the  gap  of  water,  the  little  island  fact,  to  be 
somehow  bridged  over.  All  of  which  makes  him, 
I  of  course  desperately  recognise,  another  of  the 
"intelligent",  another  exposed  and  assaulted, 
active  and  passive  "mind"  engaged  in  an  ad 
venture  and  interesting  in  itself  by  so  being;  but 
I  rejoice  in  that  aspect  of  my  material  as  dra 
matically  and  determinantly  general.  It  isn't 
centrally  a  drama  of  fools  or  vulgarians;  it's  only 
circumferentially  and  surroundedly  so — these 
being  enormously  implied  and  with  the  effect 
of  their  hovering  and  pressing  upon  the  whole 
business  from  without,  but  seen  and  felt  by  us 
only  with  that  rich  indirectness.  So  far  so  good; 
but  I  come  back  for  a  moment  to  an  issue  left 
standing  yesterday — and  beyond  which,  for  that 
matter,  two  or  three  other  points  raise  their 
heads.  Why  did  it  appear  to  come  up  for  me 
again — I  having  had  it  present  to  me  before  and 
then  rather  waved  it  away — that  one  might  see 
Horton  in  the  kind  of  crisis  that  I  glanced  at  as 
throwing  him  upon  Gray  with  what  I  called 
violence?  Is  it  because  I  feel  "something  more" 

340 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

is  wanted  for  the  process  by  which  my  Young 
Man  works  off  the  distaste,  his  distaste,  for  the 
ugliness  of  his  inheritance — something  more  than 
his  just  generally  playing  into  Horton's  hands  ? 
I  am  in  presence  there  of  a  beautiful  difficulty, 
beautiful  to  solve,  yet  which  one  must  be  to  the 
last  point  crystal-clear  about;  and  this  difficulty 
is  certainly  added  to  if  Gray  sees  Horton  as  "dis 
honest"  in  relation  to  others  over  and  above  his 
being  "queer"  in  the  condoned  way  I  have  so 
to  picture  for  his  relation  to  Gray.  Here  are 
complexities  not  quite  easily  unravelled,  yet 
manageable  by  getting  sufficiently  close  to  them; 
complexities,  I  mean,  of  the  question  of  whether 
-?  Horton  is  abysmal,  yes — but  with  the 
mixture  in  it  that  Gray  sees.  Ergo  I  want  the 
mixture,  and  if  I  adopt  what  I  threw  off  specu- 
latively  yesterday  I  strike  myself  as  letting  the 
mixture  more  or  less  go  and  having  the  non-mix 
ture,  that  is  the  "bad"  in  him,  preponderate. 
It  has  been  my  idea  that  this  "bad"  figures  in 
a  degree  to  Gray  as  after  a  fashion  his  own  crea 
tion,  the  creation,  that  is,  of  the  enormous  and 
fantastic  opportunity  and  temptation  he  has  held 
out — even  though  these  wouldn't  have  operated 
in  the  least,  or  couldn't,  without  predispositions 
in  Horton's  very  genius.  If  Gray  saw  him  as  a 
mere  vulgar  practiser  of  what  he  does  practise, 
the  interest  would  by  that  fact  exceedingly  drop; 
there  would  be  no  interest  indeed,  and  the  beauty 

341 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

of  my  "psychological"  picture  wouldn't  come 
off,  would  have  no  foot  to  stand  on.  The  beau 
ty  is  in  the  complexity  of  the  question — which, 
stated  in  the  simplest  terms  possible,  reduces 
itself  to  Morton's  practically  saying  to  Gray,  or 
seeing  himself  as  saying  to  Gray  should  it  come 
to  the  absolute  touch:  "You  mind,  in  your  ex 
traordinary  way,  how  this  money  was  accumulated 
and  hanky-pankied,  you  suffer,  and  cultivate  a 
suffering,  from  the  perpetrated  wrong  of  which 
you  feel  it  the  embodied  evidence,  and  with  which 
the  possession  of  it  is  thereby  poisoned  for  you. 
But  I  don't  mind  one  little  scrap — and  there  is 
a  great  deal  more  to  be  said  than  you  seem  so 
much  as  able  to  understand,  or  so  much  as  able 
to  want  to,  about  the  whole  question  of  how 
money  comes  to  those  who  know  how  to  make 
it.  Here  you  are  then,  if  it's  so  disagreeable  to 
you — and  what  can  one  really  say,  with  the  chances 
you  give  me  to  say  it,  but  that  if  you  are  so  bur 
dened  and  afflicted,  there  are  ways  of  relieving 
you  which,  upon  my  honour,  I  should  perfectly 
undertake  to  work — given  the  facilities  that  you 
so  morbidly,  so  fantastically,  so  all  but  incredibly 
save  for  the  testimony  of  my  senses,  permit  me 
to  enjoy."  That,  yes;  but  that  is  very  different 
from  the  wider  range  of  application  of  the  apti 
tudes  concerned.  The  confession,  and  the  delin 
quency  preceding  it,  that  played  a  bit  up  for 
me  yesterday — what  do  they  do  but  make  Hor- 

342 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

ton  just  as  vulgar  as  I  don't  want  him,  and,  as 
I  immediately  recognise,  Gray  wouldn't  in  the 
least  be  able  to  stomach  seeing  him  under  any 
continuance  of  relations.  I  have  it,  I  have  it, 
and  it  comes  as  an  answer  to  why  I  worried  ?  Be 
cause  of  felt  want  of  a  way  of  providing  for  some 
Big  Haul,  really  big;  which  my  situation  ab 
solutely  requires.  There  must  be  at  a  given  mo 
ment  a  big  haul  in  order  to  produce  the  big  sacri 
fice;  the  latter  being  of  the  absolute  essence.  I 
say  I  have  it  when  I  ask  myself  why  the  Big 
Haul  shouldn't  simply  consist  of  the  consequence 
of  a  confession  made  by  Horton  to  Gray,  yes; 
but  made  not  about  what  he  has  lost,  whether 
dishonestly  or  not,  for  somebody  else,  but  what 
he  has  lost  for  Gray.  Solutions  here  bristle, 
positively,  for  the  case  seems  to  clear  up  from 
the  moment  I  make  Horton  put  his  matter  as  a 
mere  disastrous  loss,  of  unwisdom,  of  having 
been  "done"  by  others  and  not  as  a  thing  in 
volving  his  own  obliquity.  What  I  want  is  that 
he  pleads  the  loss — whether  loss  to  Gray,  loss  to 
another  party,  or  loss  to  both,  is  a  detail.  I  in 
cline  to  think  loss  to  Gray  sufficient — loss  that 
Gray  accepts,  which  is  different  from  his  meet 
ing  the  disaster  inflicted  on  another  by  Horton. 
What  I  want  a  bit  is  all  contained  in  Gray's 
question,  afterwards  determined,  not  absolutely 
present  at  the  moment,  of  whether  this  fact  has 
not  been  a  feigned  or  simulated  one,  not  a  genuine 

343 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

gulf  of  accident,  but  an  appeal  for  relinquishment 
practised  on  Gray  by  the  latter's  liability  to  be 
lieve  that  the  cause  is  genuine.  I  clutch  the  idea 
of  this  determinant  of  Tightness  of  suspicion 
being  one  with  the  circumstance  that  Cissy  in 
a  sort  of  thereupon  manner  "takes  up"  with 
Horton,  instead  of  not  doing  so,  as  figures  to 
Gray  as  discernible  if  Horton  were  merely  minus. 
Is  it  cleared  up  for  Gray  that  the  cause  is  not 
genuine  ? — does  he  get,  or  does  he  seek,  any 
definite  light  on  this  ?  Does  he  tell  any  one, 
that  is  does  he  tell  Rosanna  of  the  incident 
(though  I  want  the  thing  of  proportions  bigger 
than  those  of  a  mere  incident) — does  he  put  it 
to  her,  in  short  does  he  take  her  into  his  con 
fidence  about  it  ?  I  think  I  see  that  he  does  to 
this  extent,  that  she  is  the  only  person  to  whom 
he  speaks,  but  that  he  then  speaks  with  a  kind 
of  transparent  and,  as  it  were,  (as  it  is  in  her 
sight)  "sublime"  dissimulation.  Yes,  I  think 
that's  the  way  I  want  it — that  he  tells  her  what 
has  happened,  tells  it  to  her  as  having  happened, 
as  a  statement  of  what  he  has  done  or  means  to 
do — perhaps  his  mind  isn't  even  yet  made  up  to 
it;  whereby  I  seem  to  get  a  very  interesting  pas 
sage  of  drama  and  another  very  fine  "Joint." 
He  doesn't,  no,  decidedly,  communicate  anything 
to  Davey  Bradham — his  instinct  has  been  against 
that — and  I  feel  herewith  how  much  I  want  this 
D.B.  relation  for  him  to  have  all  its  possibility 

344 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

of  irony,  " comedy",  humorous  colour,  so  to 
speak.  I  want  awfully  to  do  D.B.  to  the  full 
and  give  him  all  his  value.  However,  it's  of  the 
situation  here  with  Rosanna  that  the  question 
is,  and  I  seem  to  feel  that  still  further  clear  up 
for  me.  There  has  been  the  passage,  the  big 
circumstance,  with  Horton — as  to  which,  as  to 
the  sense  of  which  and  of  what  it  involves  for 
him,  don't  I  after  all  see  him  as  taking  time  ? 
after  all  see  him  as  a  bit  staggered  quand  meme, 
and,  as  it  were,  asking  for  time,  though  without 
any  betrayal  of  "suspicion",  any  expression 
tantamount  to  "What  a  queer  story!"  Yes, 
yes,  it  seems  to  come  to  me  that  I  want  the  de 
termination  of  suspicion  not  to  come  at  once; 
I  want  it  to  hang  back  and  wait  for  a  big  "crystal 
lisation,"  a  falling  together  of  many  things,  which 
now  takes  place,  as  it  were,  in  Rosanna's  presence 
and  under  her  extraordinary  tacit  action,  in  that 
atmosphere  of  their  relation  which  has  already 
given  me,  or  will  have  given,  not  to  speak  pre 
sumptuously,  so  much.  It  kind  of  comes  over 
me  even  that  I  don't  want  any  articulation  to 
himself  of  the  "integrity"  question  in  respect  to 
Horton  to  have  taken  place  at  all — till  it  very 
momentously  takes  place  all  at  once  in  the  air, 
as  I  say,  and  on  the  ground,  and  in  the  course, 
of  this  present  scene.  Immensely  interesting  to 
have  made  Everything  precedent  to  have  con 
sisted  but  in  preparation  for  this  momentousness, 

345 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

so  that  the  whole  effect  has  been  gathered  there 
ready  to  break.  At  the  same  time,  if  I  make  it 
break  not  in  the  right  way,  unless  I  so  rightly 
condition  its  breaking,  I  do  what  I  was  moved 
just  above  to  bar,  the  giving  away  of  Horton 
to  Rosanna  in  the  sense  that  fixing  his  behaviour 
upon  him,  or  inviting  or  allowing  her  to  fix  it, 
is  a  thing  I  see  my  finer  alternative  to.  The 
great  thing,  the  great  find,  I  really  think,  for 
the  moment,  is  this  fact  of  his  having  gone  to 
her  in  a  sort  of  still  preserved  uncertainty  of  light 
that  amounts  virtually  to  darkness,  and  then 
after  a  time  with  her  coming  away  with  the  un 
certainty  dispelled  and  the  remarkable  light  in 
stead  taking  its  place.  That  gives  me  my  very 
form  and  climax — in  respect  to  the  "way"  that 
has  most  perplexed  me,  and  gathers  my  action 
up  to  the  fulness  so  proposed  and  desired;  to 
the  point  after  which  I  want  to  make  it  workable 
that  there  shall  be  but  two  Books  left.  In  other 
words  the  ideal  will  be  that  this  whole  passage, 
using  the  word  in  the  largest  sense,  with  all  the 
accompanying  aspects,  shall  constitute  Book  8, 
"Act"  8,  as  I  call  it,  of  my  drama,  with  the  de- 
noument  occupying  the  space  to  the  end — for 
the  foregoing  is  of  course  not  in  the  least  the 
denoument,  but  only  prepares  it,  just  as  what  is 
thus  involved  is  the  occupancy  of  Book  7  by  the 
history  with  Horton.  Of  course  I  can  but  reflect 
that  to  bring  this  splendid  economy  off  it  must 

346 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

have  been  practised  up  to  VII  with  the  most 
intense  and  immense  art:  the  scheme  I  have  al 
ready  sketched  for  I  and  II  leaving  me  therewith 
but  III,  IV,  V,  and  VI  to  arrive  at  the  complete 
ness  of  preparation  for  VII,  which  carries  in  its 
bosom  the  completeness  of  preparation  for  VIII 
—this  last,  by  a  like  grand  law,  carrying  in  its 
pocket  the  completeness  of  preparation  for  IX 
and  X.  But  why  not  ?  Who's  afraid  ?  and  what 
has  the  very  essence  of  my  design  been  but  the 
most  magnificent  packed  and  calculated  close 
ness  ?  Keep  this  closeness  up  to  the  notch  while 
admirably  animating  it,  and  I  do  what  I  should 
simply  be  sickened  to  death  not  to!  Of  course 
it  means  the  absolute  exclusively  economic  exist 
ence  and  situation  of  every  sentence  and  every 
letter;  but  again  what  is  that  but  the  most  de 
sirable  of  beauties  in  itself?  The  chapters  of 
history  with  Rosanna  leave  me  then  to  show, 
speaking  simply,  its  effect  with  regard  to  (I  as 
sume  I  put  first)  Gray  and  Horton,  to  Gray  and 
Cissy,  to  Cissy  and  Horton,  to  Gray  and  Mrs. 
Bradham  on  the  one  hand  and  to  Gray  and  Davey 
on  the  other  and  finally  and  supremely  to  Gray 
and  Rosanna  herself.  It  is  of  course  definitely 
on  that  note  the  thing  closes — but  wait  a  little 
before  I  come  to  it.  Let  me  state  as  "plainly" 
as  may  be  what  "happens"  as  the  next  step  in 
my  drama,  the  next  Joint  in  the  action  after  the 
climax  of  the  "scene"  with  Rosanna.  Obviously 

347 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

the  first  thing  is  a  passage  with  Horton,  the  pas 
sage  after,  which  shall  be  a  pendant  to  the  passage 
before.  But  don't  I  want  some  episode  to  inter 
pose  here  on  the  momentous  ground  of  the  Girl  ? 
These  sequences  to  be  absolutely  planned  and 
fitted  together,  of  course,  up  to  their  last  point 
of  relation;  to  work  such  complexity  into  such 
compass  can  only  be  a  difficulty  of  the  most  in 
spiring — the  prize  being,  naturally,  to  achieve 
the  lucidity  with  the  complexity.  What  then  is 
the  lucidity  for  us  about  my  heroine,  and  exactly 
what  is  it  that  I  want  and  don't  want  to  show  ? 
I  want  something  to  take  place  here  between 
Gray  and  her  that  crowns  his  vision  and  his  ac 
tion  in  respect  to  Horton.  As  I  of  course  want 
every  point  and  comma  to  be  "functional",  so 
there's  nothing  I  want  that  more  for  than  for 
this  aspect  of  my  crisis — which  does,  yes,  de 
cidedly,  present  itself  before  Gray  has  again  seen 
Horton.  I  seem  even  to  want  this  aspect,  as  I 
call  it,  to  be  the  decisive  thing  in  respect  to  his 
"decision".  I  want  something  to  have  still  de 
pended  for  him  on  the  question  of  how  she  is, 
what  she  does,  what  she  makes  him  see,  however 
little  intending  it,  of  her  sensibility  to  the  crisis, 
as  it  were — knowing  as  I  do  what  I  mean  by  this. 
But  what  does  come  up  for  me,  and  has  to  be 
faced,  is  all  the  appearance  that  all  this  later 
development  that  I  have  sketched  and  am  sketch 
ing,  rather  directly  involves  a  deviation  from 

348 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

that  help  by  alternations  which  I  originally  counted 
on,  and  which  I  began  by  drawing  upon  in  the 
first  three  or  four  Books.  What  becomes  after 
the  first  three  or  four  then  of  that  variation — if 
I  make  my  march  between  IV  and  VIII  inclusive 
all  a  matter  of  what  appears  to  Gray  ?  Perhaps 
on  closer  view  I  can  for  the  "finer  amusement" 
escape  that  frustration — though  it  would  take 
some  doing;  and  the  fact  remains  that  I  don't 
really  want,  and  can't,  any  other  exhibition  than 
Gray's  own  except  in  the  case  of  Horton  and  the 
Young  Woman.  I  should  like  more  variation 
than  just  that  will  yield  me  withal — so  at  least 
it  strikes  me;  but  if  I  press  a  bit  a  possibility 
perhaps  will  rise.  Two  things  strike  me:  one  of 
these  being  that  instead  of  making  Book  9  Gray's 
"act"  I  may  make  it  in  a  manner  Cissy's  owrf; 
save  that  a  terrific  little  question  here  comes  up 
as  involved  in  the  very  essence  of  my  cherished 
symmetry  and  "unity".  The  absolute  prime 
compositional  idea  ruling  me  is  thus  the  unity  of 
each  Act,  and  I  get  unity  with  the  Girl  for  IX 
only  if  I  keep  it  to  her  and  whoever  else.  To  her 
and  Horton,  yes,  to  her  and  Gray  (Gray  first) 
yes;  only  how  then  comes  in  the  "passage"  of 
Gray  and  Horton  without  her,  and  which  I  don't 
want  to  push  over  to  X.  It  would  be  an  "aes 
thetic"  ravishment  to  make  Book  10  balance 
with  Book  I  as  Rosanna's  affair;  which  I  glimmer- 
ingly  see  as  interestingly  possible  if  I  can  wind 

349 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

up  somehow  as  I  want  to  do  between  Gray  and 
Horton.  In  connection  with  which,  however, 
something  again  glimmers — the  possibility  of 
making  Book  9  quand  meme  Cissy  and  Horton 
and  Gray;  twisting  out,  that  is,  some  admirable 
way  of  her  being  participant  in,  "present  at", 
what  here  happens  between  them  as  to  their  own 
affair.  I  say  these  things  after  all  with  the  sense, 
so  founded  on  past  experience,  that,  in  closer 
quarters  and  the  intimacy  of  composition,  pre- 
noted  arrangements,  proportions  and  relations, 
do  most  uncommonly  insist  on  making  themselves 
different  by  shifts  and  variations,  always  im 
proving,  which  impose  themselves  as  one  goes 
and  keep  the  door  open  always  to  something 
more  right  and  more  related.  It  is  subject  to 
that  constant  possibility,  all  the  while,  that  one 
does  pre-note  and  tentatively  sketch;  a  fact  so 
constantly  before  one  as  to  make  too  idle  any 
waste  of  words  on  it.  At  the  same  time  I  do  ab 
solutely  and  utterly  want  to  stick,  even  to  the 
very  depth,  to  the  general  distribution  here 
imagined  as  I  have  groped  on;  and  I  am  at  least 
now  taking  a  certain  rightness  and  conclusiveness 
of  parts  and  items  for  granted  until  the  intimate 
tussle,  as  I  say,  happens,  if  it  does  happen,  to 
dislocate  or  modify  them.  Such  an  assumption 
for  instance  I  find  myself  quite  loving  to  make 
in  presence  of  the  vision  quite  colouring  up  for 
me  yesterday  of  Book  9  as  given  to  Gray  and 

350 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

Horton  and  Cissy  Together,  as  I  may  rudely 
express  it,  and  Book  10,  to  repeat,  given,  with  a 
splendid  richness  and  comprehensiveness,  to  Ro- 
sanna,  as  I  hope  to  have  shown  Book  i  as  so 
given.  Variety,  variety — I  want  to  go  in  for 
that  for  all  the  possibilities  of  my  case  may  be 
worth;  and  I  see,  I  feel,  how  a  sort  of  fond  fancy 
of  it  is  met  by  the  distribution,  the  little  cluster 
of  determinations,  or,  so  to  speak,  for  the  pleasure 
of  putting  it,  determinatenesses,  so  noted.  It 
gives  me  the  central  mass  of  the  thing  for  my 
hero's  own  embrace  and  makes  beginning  and 
end  sort  of  confront  each  other  over  it. 

Is  it  vain  to  do  anything  but  say,  that  is  but 
feel,  that  this  situation  of  the  Three  in  Book  9 
absolutely  demands  the  intimate  grip  for  clear 
ing  itself  up,  working  itself  out  ?  Yes,  perfectly 
vain,  I  reflect,  as  at  all  precluding  the  high  urgency 
and  decency  of  my  seeing  in  advance  just  how 
and  where  I  plant  my  feet  and  direct  my  steps. 
Express  absolutely,  to  this  end,  the  conclusive 
sense,  the  clear  firm  function,  of  Book  9 — out  of 
which  the  rest  bristles.  I  want  it,  as  for  that 
matter  I  want  each  Book,  with  the  last  longing 
and  fullest  intention,  to  be  what  it  is  "amusing" 
and  regaling  to  think  of  as  "complete  in  itself"; 
otherwise  a  thoroughly  expressed  Occasion,  or 
as  I  have  kept  calling  it  Aspect,  such  as  one  can 
go  at,  thanks  to  the  flow  of  the  current  in  it,  in 
the  firmest  possible  little  narrative  way.  The 

351 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

form  of  the  Occasion  is  the  form  that  I  somehow 
see  as  here  very  particularly  presenting  itself  and 
contributing  its  aid  to  that  impression  of  the 
Three  Together  which  I  try  to  focus.  Where, 
exactly,  and  exactly  how,  are  they  thus  vividly 
and  workably  together  ? — what  is  the  most 
"amusing"  way  of  making  them  so  ?  It  is  funda 
mental  for  me  to  note  that  my  action  represents 
and  embraces  the  sequences  of  a  Year,  not  going 
beyond  this  and  not  falling  short  of  it.  I  can't 
get  my  Unity,  can't  keep  it,  on  the  basis  of  more 
than  a  year,  and  can't  get  my  complexity,  don't 
want  to,  in  anything  a  bit  less.  I  see  a  Year  right, 
in  fine,  and  it  brings  me  round  therefore  to  the 
early  summer  from  the  time  of  my  original  Ex 
position.  With  which  it  comes  to  me  of  course 
that  one  of  the  things  accruing  to  Gray  under 
his  Uncle's  Will  is  the  house  at  Newport,  which 
belonged  to  the  old  man,  and  which  I  have  no 
desire  to  go  into  any  reason  whatever  for  his 
heir's  having  got  rid  of.  There  is  the  house  at 
Newport — as  to  which  it  comes  over  me  that  I 
kind  of  see  him  in  it  once  or  twice  during  the 
progress  of  the  autumn's,  the  winter's,  the  spring's 
events.  Isn't  it  also  a  part  of  my  affair  that  I 
see  the  Bradhams  with  a  Newport  place,  and  am 
more  or  less  encouraged  herewith  to  make  out 
the  Scene  of  Book  9,  the  embracing  Occasion,  of 
the  three,  as  a  "staying"  of  them,  in  the  natural 
way,  the  inevitable,  the  illustrative,  under  some 

352 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

roof  that  places  them  vividly  in  relation  to  each 
other.  Of  course  Mrs.  Bradham  has  her  great 
characteristic  house  away  from  N.Y.,  where  any 
thing  and  everything  may  characteristically  find 
their  background — the  whole  case  being  com 
patible  with  that  lively  shakiness  of  fortune  that 
I  have  glanced  at;  only  I  want  to  keep  the  whole 
thing,  so  far  as  my  poor  little  "documented" 
state  permits,  on  the  lines  of  absolutely  current 
New  York  practice,  as  I  further  reflect  I  probably 
don't  want  to  move  Gray  an  inch  out  of  N.Y. 
"during  the  winter",  this  probably  a  quite  un 
necessarily  bad  economy.  Having  what  I  have 
of  New  York  isn't  the  question  of  using  it,  and 
it  only,  as  entirely  adequate  from  Book  4  to  8 
inclusive  ?  To  keep  everything  as  like  these 
actualities  of  N.Y.  as  possible,  for  the  sake  of 
my  "atmosphere",  I  must  be  wary  and  wise; 
in  the  sense  for  instance  that  said  actualities 
don't  at  all  comprise  people's  being  at  Newport 
early  in  the  summer.  How  then,  however,  came 
the  Bradhams  to  be  there  at  the  time  noted  in 
my  Book  I  ?  I  reflect  happily  apropos  of  this 
that  my  there  positing  the  early  summer  (in 
Book  i)  is  a  stroke  that  I  needn't  at  all  now  take 
account  of;  it  having  been  but  an  accident  of 
my  small  vague  plan  as  it  glimmered  to  me  from 
the  very  first  go-off.  No,  definitely,  the  time- 
scheme  must  a  bit  move  on,  and  give  help  there 
by  to  the  place-scheme;  if  I  want  Gray  to  arrive 

353 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

en  plein  Newport,  as  I  do  for  immediate  control 
of  the  assault  of  his  impressions,  it  must  be  a 
matter  of  August  rather  than  of  June;  and  noth 
ing  is  simpler  than  to  shift.  Let  me  indeed  so 
far  modify  as  to  conceive  that  15  or  16  months 
will  be  as  workable  as  a  Year — practically  they 
will  count  as  the  period  both  short  enough  and 
long  enough;  and  will  bring  me  for  Nine  and 
Ten  round  to  the  Newport  or  whatever  of  Au 
gust,  and  to  the  whatever  else  of  some  moment 
of  beauty  and  harmony  in  the  American  autumn. 
Let  me  wind  up  on  a  kind  of  strong  October  or 
perhaps  even  better  still — yes,  better  still — latish 
November,  in  other  words  admirable  Indian 
Summer,  note.  That  brings  me  round  and  makes 
the  circle  whole.  Well  then  I  don't  seem  to  want 
a  repetition  of  Newport — as  if  it  were,  poor  old 
dear,  the  only  place  known  to  me  in  the  coun 
try  ! — for  the  images  that  this  last  suggestion 
causes  more  or  less  to  swarm.  By  the  blessing 
of  heaven  I  am  possessed,  sufficiently  to  say  so, 
of  Lenox,  and  Lenox  for  the  autumn  is  much 
more  characteristic  too.  What  do  I  seem  to  see 
then  ? — as  I  don't  at  all  want,  or  imagine  myself 
wanting  at  the  scratch,  to  make  a  local  jump 
between  Nine  and  Ten.  These  things  come — I 
see  them  coming  now.  Of  course  it's  perfectly 
conceivable,  and  entirely  characteristic,  that  Mrs. 
Bradham  should  have  a  place  at  Lenox  as  well 
as  at  Newport;  if  it's  necessary  to  posit  her  for 

354 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

the  previous  summer  in  her  own  house  at  the 
latter  place.  It's  perfectly  in  order  that  she  may 
have  taken  one  there  for  the  summer — and  that 
having  let  the  Lenox  place  at  that  time  may 
figure  as  a  sort  of  note  of  the  crack  in  her  financial 
aspect  that  is  part,  to  call  it  part,  of  my  concern. 
All  of  which  are  considerations  entirely  meetable 
at  the  short  range — save  that  I  do  really  seem  to 
kind  of  want  Book  10  at  Lenox  and  to  want  Nine 
there  by  the  same  stroke.  I  should  like  to  stick 
Rosanna  at  the  beautiful  Dublin,  if  it  weren't 
for  the  grotesque  anomaly  of  the  name;  and  after 
all  what  need  serve  my  purpose  better  than  what 
I  already  have  ?  It's  provided  for  in  Book  i 
that  she  and  her  father  had  only  taken  the  house 
at  Newport  for  a  couple  of  months  or  whatever; 
so  that  is  all  to  the  good.  Oh  yes,  all  that  New 
England  mountain-land  that  I  thus  get  by  radi 
ation,  and  thus  welcome  the  idea  of  for  values 
surging  after  a  fashion  upon  Gray,  appeals  to 
one  to  "do"  a  bit,  even  in  a  measure  beyond 
one's  hope  of  space  to  do  it.  Well  before  me 
surely  too  the  fact  that  my  whole  action  does, 
can  only,  take  place  in  the  air  of  the  last  actuality; 
which  supports  so,  and  plays  into,  its  sense  and 
its  portee.  Therefore  it's  a  question  of  all  the 
intensest  modernity  of  every  American  descrip 
tion;  cars  and  telephones  and  facilities  and  ma 
chineries  and  resources  of  certain  sorts  not  to 
be  exaggerated;  which  I  can't  not  take  account 

355 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

of.  Assume  then,  in  fine,  the  Bradhams  this 
second  autumn  at  Lenox,  assume  Gussie  blazing 
away  as  if  at  the  very  sincerest  and  validest  top 
of  her  push;  assume  Rosanna  as  naturally  there 
in  the  "summer  home"  which  has  been  her  and 
her  father's  only  possessional  alternative  to  N.Y. 
I  violate  verisimilitude  in  not  brushing  them  all, 
all  of  the  N.Y.  "social  magnates",  off  to  Paris 
as  soon  as  Lent  sets  in,  by  their  prescribed  oscilla 
tion;  but  who  knows  but  what  it  will  be  con 
venient  quite  exactly  to  shift  Gussie  across  for 
the  time,  as  nothing  then  would  be  more  in  the 
line  of  truth  than  to  have  her  bustle  expensively 
back  for  her  Lenox  proceedings  of  the  autumn. 
These  things,  however,  are  trifles.  All  I  have 
wanted  to  thresh  out  a  bit  has  been  the  "placing" 
of  Nine  and  Ten;  and  for  this  I  have  more  than 
enough  provided. 

What  it  seems  to  come  to  then  is  the  "positing" 
of  Cissy  at  Lenox  with  the  Bradhams  at  the  time 
the  circumstances  of  Book  Eight  have  occurred; 
it's  coming  to  me  with  which  that  I  seem  exactly 
to  want  them  to  occur  in  the  empty  town,  the 
New  York  of  a  more  or  less  torrid  mid-August 
— this  I  feel  so  "possessed  of";  to  which  Gray 
has  "come  back"  (say  from  Newport  where  he 
has  been  for  a  bit  alone  in  his  own  house  there, 
to  think,  as  it  were,  with  concentration);  come 
back  precisely  for  the  passage  with  Horton.  So 
at  any  rate  for  the  moment  I  seem  to  see  ikat\ 

356 


THE  IVORY  TOWER 

my  actual  point  being,  however,  that  Cissy  is 
posited  at  Lenox,  that  the  Book  "opens"  with 
her,  and  that  it  is  in  the  sense  I  mean  "her" 
Book.  She  is  there  waiting  as  it  were  on  what 
Horton  does,  so  far  as  I  allow  her  intelligence 
of  this;  and  it  is  there  that  Gray  finds  her  on 
his  going  on  to  Lenox  whether  under  constraint 
(by  what  has  gone  before)  of  a  visit  to  the  Brad- 
hams,  a  stay  of  some  days  with  them,  or  under 
the  interest  of  a  conceivable  stay  with  Rosanna; 
a  sort  of  thing  that  I  represent,  or  at  any  rate 
"posit",  as  perfectly  in  the  line  of  Rosanna's 
present  freedom  and  attributes.  Would  I  rather 
have  him  with  Rosanna  and  "going  over"  to 
the  Bradhams  ?  would  I  rather  have  him  with 
the  Bradhams  and  going  over  to  Rosanna? — or 
would  I  rather  have  him  at  neither  place  and 
staying  by  himself  at  an  hotel,  which  seems  to 
leave  me  the  right  margin  ?  There  has  been  no 
staying  up  to  this  point  for  him  with  either  party, 
and  I  have  as  free  a  hand  as  could  be.  With 
which  there  glimmer  upon  me  advantages — oh 
yes — in  placing  him  in  his  own  independence; 
especially  for  Book  10:  in  short  it  seems  to  come. 
Don't  I  see  Cissy  as  having  obtained  from  Gussie 
Bradham  that  Horton  shall  be  invited — which 
fact  in  itself  I  here  provisionally  throw  off  as 
giving  me  perhaps  a  sort  of  starting  value. 


357 


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